October 14, 2022 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM
But regardless, it's something for them to use in years down the road when a seat becomes open and a legislator is trying to decide who to put in a seat, they can go back to this and say, We really need to find someone in marine engineering because that's where the board's laid. And, and I think that's all that is. So, you know, you know, we have to be able to just look at this ourselves and say, where do I have experience here that has helped helpful to this board's role? And, and gotta go there. And if we don't know, I mean just, just read them and, and go, you know, go through the sections and decide where you can honestly say, yeah, I absolutely have this experience that one I'm leading blank cause I don't, well I don't understand even what it is. And we'll leave it up to the legislature to either define those maybe next year a little bit better or what have you. But I think it's just toolkit for them when they start looking at future, who do we put to these seeds? Yeah, I, I mean I'm interpreting this but I'm, it is just a way to understand where the gaps are.
Obviously you all were identified as valuable individuals for this quarter you would see here. So that's sort of my re but I also like this is usually this conversation is around a self recruiting entity and so that's not what you all are doing here. And so it's a little bit interesting. So just doing a time check here. Hopefully everyone feels that if you're not comfortable, you know, maybe wait till after. I wanna check in with Norm because we did get, we emailed Norm and Captain page and I just wanna make sure Norm, you've got it and you can fill it out, you can print it and, or you could just, it, it doesn't have to happen today. This is just the start to this process. But normally you got it. Okay. Yes. Great. Great. So I wanna do a time check. According to the agenda we are breaking, gosh, we don't say when we're breaking.
We are starting back up at 1230. Yeah, we're breaking it. Yeah, so, so we've got a little bit of time. I have one last slide that I'm gonna talk a little bit about and then there really is a, a transition into the workshop and kind of, we're not gonna have one at as part of that, but I think that's just the reality. So who gets these, these forms? Shirley? Catherine, I think once we Phil an I, it goes to Catherine because it's gonna be putting it into the short term plan. And once we get these filled out, this is, you know, we can probably see the results at our next meeting when we're taking up the short term plan. Yeah. And, and just look at those. But how would say happens? We just kind of made it up.
Well it's, it's required in the short term plan. Yeah. It's actually a section in the short term plan, which is in VOT court. So I think that's example of answering, you know, chicken and egg providing information. Yeah. But I also to that point would, wouldn't discourage the board from continuing that conversation, you know, by way of recommendations and, and what you think your needs are.
Well we, I think you'd to see this we'd this for everybody. Yeah. Talking about is obviously we all feel maybe foster syndrome or something and we don't belong here, but I don't agree with that. But are there areas that we see that maybe we are really lacking? Like I don't know what that is. Great
Yeah. And so while we're focusing on the long-range plan today, I would argue part of the long-range plan is the short range plan, right? So it's kind of like how do you not address some of those things that are front and center, but we are gonna be talking long term and wanna recognize special guests to the Thrive representative student welcome be happened to be overturned summit, right? So we are representative copy of your, Okay, great. So we're just at our last 30 minutes before we break for lunch. And this is actually my last slide. So this will be the end of PowerPoint for the day and the rest of our focus will be on this wall behind me where we'll be doing some workshopping. So as we've been talking about today, you know, in terms of roles and responsibilities between the department and the board, this board is going to, I'm going to lead you through a workshop on the elements of a long range plan for the Alaska Marine Highway system.
But this board will not be writing the plan. And so you all kind of went through that discussion this morning, but we're gonna get some, we're gonna get some things up on the wall and we're gonna talk about what you want and what you would like to recommend to the department. So, you know, usually I'm facilitating the actual planning process. I'm not doing that today. I'm facilitating your development of some recommendations. So just so that's clear. But I, I always like to start with groups with this, this framework. And when I first started helping folks with groups like yours or others that were actually writing the plan with strategic planning, I found myself in this situation where we were in the room starting the process and the next thing we know I'm managing a debate over what do we mean, what is a mission, what is a goal, what is an objective?
And everybody's like arguing about all this planned jargon. And so I was like, oh, I gotta figure out what are the real definitions of these things if I'm gonna be facilitating groups and doing this. And what I found is there's lots of different definitions, there's lots of planned jargon out there. And so one thing is clear and that is in the statute, the terms goals or priorities are actually used. So that is terminology that I would recommend to be used since that's in the law. But the words that we use that are less important than the definitions of the work. And that's really important for everyone to be on the same page.
This group is in an advisory role and so I would say everything below goals or priorities certainly you weigh in on, but you start getting more into implementation at that stage. And so yeah, that's probably more, you know, in the week in my opinion for for this group. And so if you're gonna be advancing some recommendations, my suggestion is, you know, I know that you guys have talked about vision and mission language already. The workshop I have prepared for you today will help identify some goals or priorities and you can decide what you wanna call, I mean, you can pick one, maybe you want just priorities. That's what what I would do. And then those turn into goal statements or maybe you don't even do the goal statements. Maybe that's what the DT does. I mean, you know, you're not writing in it, you're just providing guidance. So, so when we talk about, these are my recommended definitions, you can take them or leave them. I don't really care what people use, I don't care. You know, you're gonna have a contractor that's gonna be a professional you planner on your staff. I would just advocate that you get agreement on what your definitions are. So for today, we're going to use priorities in my workshop questions you may decide that's not the right word, but the definition I would argue is probably say a set of strategies where focused effort is needed to change outcomes.
So that's it for this slide and if people want to talk a little bit more, that was actually through the end of the day, that final slide, but I forgot we were doing a whole workshop in between. So that's it. I I'm happy to answer any questions about this. We have a workshop that isn't scheduled to start until 1230. We could start that now. It might be a little weird. I'm not really sure what to do with this. 20 minutes we
I would love to do that. I wasn't sure if you were ready to do that. So, so Shirley had a suggestion. Yeah, and I, I mentioned that I watched some of your previous meetings and it, it sounded like there was some language for vision and mission that you guys had already been kind circulating and actually don't have that language. But that would be a great, a great way if people are into it. Just spend the next couple of minutes before we break the lunch. Shirley, can you remind me where that language list? Well there's currently language for vision admission for the left highway system the board has looked at. And just very briefly as an overview and wondered if that that, is it online? It's online if that language. I don't mean my
On the here but Right. So mission statement for the Alaska Marine Highway system. So what is this a PowerPoint for? Was this a previous meeting or at a previous meeting? Yeah, presentation Catherine. Cool. So, you know, and at the time we looked at that there were one at which, you know, and I'm sorry that, but her concern was that it was too over broad and wordy and didn't really focus in on, on what the mission was. I don't remember. I think a wanted to maybe look at that as well. Personally, I'm, I'm ambivalent on it. I think there's all sorts of wordsmithing that one to do move birds around. But you know, the, the mission is pretty straightforward and, and it belongs with the d t mission statement, which is moving people and cargo through the state of Alaska and remotely. And we're just part of that, part of that system.
So I don't know if the board, you know, wanted to take a look at the mission statement and, and if they had a different idea of what it should say and if not, you know, I mean we certainly don't have to Again Marilyn. Yeah. Oh no, let's not relook at the mission statement and the vision again because we'll just make this little tweak over here and everybody, you know, it's just, it's interesting. I usually when there's already existing vision and mission statements that have been agreed upon, my recommendation is that may not be reopened unless there's a really good reason right. And kind of reopen a can work if you're not careful. But, you know, I think that it's up to this group. What do you wanna recommend to the department? And if you wanna recommend this mission statement, I think that's certainly within your purview. Would you like me to read it? Yeah, there goes. The mission of amhs is to provide space, reliable and efficient transportation of people, goods and vehicles among Alaska Community Canada and a lower 48 while providing opportunities to develop and maintain a reasonable standard of living and high quality of life, including social education and health needs.
What does the surf 1960 mean? Does that mean that's when the very first part of it, I think it stopped at the lower 48 if I'm not mistaken. And this is what amendment, I think this came out the m tab process where folks just wanted to expand it more to make sure that people understood why the Marine highway system was so important by tying in all of these other elements. So was it was added to and, and I think not, not so many years ago, maybe the last 10 years I pulled that from the March 11th, 2020 to am meeting, there was a presentation. It it's, I mean if, if y'all like that statement could vote on it.
I have conflicting thoughts on, on this mission statement. We as a board, what is the board's mission and versus what is DOT's mission? And so I think we, I need to anyway refocus like thinking that when I read for example, original delivered paper that, that, that but output, it really talks about creating a more efficient type system that is, is better for the long term rather than what we currently have. So, and that's not necessarily what Yeah. DOT's overall mission is. So it, we're gonna have a mission statement I think should reflect exactly what we want to try to achieve over the next five years or whatever. We're gonna be here to do this.
Might not need to write anything. I mean we're, we're just discussing the current mission statement for the Marine Highway system, not for the work that AM MOB is doing on behalf of the system, which is what I think you're suggesting. And if I'm wrong, I'm sorry
So I'm hearing a couple of folks that are interested in a board level mission statement. I also heard that, that the department would be open to recommendations on their mission statement as they move forward with their planning process. So I I'm hearing both of those things. Our focus today was primarily on the recommendations that you all are making to d o t for their planning. So I think that was the game plan for today. So I think you could remain silent on their vision statement or if you wanted to provide them some input. It sounds like they're open to hearing it. My
So, And one thing that, another example operating we had brought this board is just a draft operating principles for the system. It's got some interesting points about here, you know, maintaining a modernized fleet to now these are just guiding principles that Amhs should be striving for and that kind of stuff should be in the, the long range. Oh yeah, you got 'em up perfect. Should be in the long range planning effort as well. And these are just draft completely. So stuff that
I i, I personally and I, I think Alan was going the same direction. So it'd be nice to have something like this that we could get on a one page like this that incorporate house bill 63 and you know, kind of what we're trying to do and what we're, what we're putting together and when the long range plans like, you know, keep us on track, like no, no, no, we're supposed to be doing this. Is that I I, yes, but the conversation we were gonna have when we started this whole thing was the list of different issues that we were talking about for the long range plan attorney wrote out and does that as a meeting, combined everything to prioritize all that and get us on the focus of where we were starting here and going down to get the long range plan. But that involves the conversation we had earlier today about exactly what does the bill allow us to do. Should we be more interactive with trying to focus the legislature and the governor into getting us down that most efficient track that we can get the, the marine highway system into. Or do we need to get down into the nitty gritties of do we have an engineer on board board that will help us decide way down here what the engineering problems are or are we more on the holistic trying to get us down or are we all of it? I don't know. That's the confusion that I have as we go through this process.
Yeah, I think I'm starting to understand what you're looking for. Please bear with me. So all you know, cause we have information here, we've got the slide over here, we've got this paper over here, Cetera, to condense it all into a simple for the am ho board, what the goals or strategies or priorities of the border I, which is systems from, from the planning, but as a board of our priority is to be as productive as possible when working with d o t. To me that would be a priority. And it sounds like you're asking to set up these ground rules from board so you can go back to it and say, ohs, we're supposed to be doing this.
So as to my report, not so much report as I know it's been a while since we last met, but that's not always a bad thing. It gives us little time to kind of pause and regroup and do homework, which we, we have had a fair amount of homework to do I think in the last, last couple of months. So that is a good thing. What the board decided at the last meeting was that we would have a facilitator come for this in person work session. It was to be a work session on the long term elements primarily. That was our, our intent. And so d o t has tasked Denali Daniels with that project and I think most of the board members have talked, if not all, with Denali before the meeting. She reached out to everyone and I talked to her as well a couple of times and looking at an agenda, we, a couple things were added because there has been a little confusion.
It's not confusion. Maybe we just need some clarity as a body on, on some of these items. So the, the roles and the responsibilities of am ho per statute language for HV 63 and, and how that fits in with what D O T is doing. You know, they, they have their way of doing things and this is, this is a new, this is very new. So we need to figure out how to better mesh and where, what our role is and what it is not. So we're not getting in the way and when we figure out, you know, agree with what our role is, how we can better work with AD o t to, to make sure that we're successful there. The second item was the board matrix and Denali provided a matrix cuz we are required by HV 63 to go through and look at that and see if we can, if we can identify areas where we need, where the board needs some more experience or or background.
And it's of course based again on HB 63 requires, asks for particular skill sets and experience and it also requires us as board to go through that and and able to show the legislature where we think maybe or might on experience or skill and something for them to look forward in the future when they are, when they're placing full seat replace current or board members. But we'll, we'll walk through that. That shouldn't then we're going to go ahead then and I think co-chair ours is going to make a motion given to a work session. And the reason that we're going to do that once we're all together, it is just, it's a far less formal way to have discussions and to gather information. And it's going to be I think very helpful for us because this is, you know, basically where we're looking at, you know, critical thinking and putting up ideas and Denali's got really good strategy set for us to do that, to work through items.
Yeah, Keith and I had a meeting with the Cisco for engineering and he's concerning the Matt Nuka and I sent out an email and what we discussed if anybody has any questions on that. And then Rob, we heard a rumor, this something going on with the trv. Is there any changes to that rumor? Could
Well there's not, it's continually being designed, right? So right now it's, it's in what you call the next stages towards final design, but that's still a long way off. So it's gonna be modifications as this thing builds out. So it's ready to construct. You might be hearing that the procurement method is, is changing a little bit in that we've broken it up into three separate procurement methods. I'm sorry, procurement lots I guess if you will. It's just one big build out. We broken the three and the reason we did that, so we have a propulsion procurement now and a, an elevator design or elevator procurement. Those were basically identified as two riskiest components of the, of the project. I, I guess the rumor was, was there anything regarding battery propulsion or anything? Oh, there's still discussion on propulsion. Yeah, there's, but there's not like some definitive design decision yet. We've, you know, technology, we're being approached by numerous vendors of course. And we're learning constantly about all the new technology for ion and all the electric options or how, you know, battery is battery that, and so everything's being explored right now. We don't want to build something that's obsolete as soon as it's completed, you know, so, but there's not firm decisions yet. Okay. We wanna build a create shift that, you know, but the, the original specs was pretty clear and we're changing, we're still changing original specs that went out to bid previously.
In a meeting. Yeah, we'll see on time. I what i, I mean I know it's important and we're interested but, but it, it can really take up a lot of time talking about one issue. If we could just get the information and then we can, we can address that again at our next meeting short term if that. Okay. Any other board members have anything, comments or any information to share? Question?
So it's true if, if you haven't heard this yet, I was Denali at the Denali Commission years. Yeah, we had to get through that meeting. It was everybody owned it. So I mean for, for those of you that may not know, there was a period of time when the Denali Commission had hundreds of millions of dollars and if you worked at the commission, your job was to work with whatever advisory committee was put together to figure out how to get a ton of money out the door without embarrassing Ted Stevens. That was our job. And so it was, it was quite the time, it was quite the era, but I think some of the lessons learned from that process I brought into helping groups like yours. And so I'm pretty excited about today. I was actually in Panama about a month ago and I had taken off to Panama on vacation after facilitating a, a pretty big meeting with Dr.
Zi. And so it's just kind of coming off of that. And that meeting actually started with a very similar email that I got for this meeting from Tara saying, Hi, I'm with the Commiss concerns office of this department and we are a native a facilitator on this date, you know, are you available and what's your right? And I, I'm sitting there going, oh gosh, I'm kind of tired from the last one. But that sounds really cool. And so thank you for asking. One thing led to another, I know you had asked other folks and so I really appreciate that you picked me. The next thing I knew, I was reading how still 63, I even watched a couple of committee hearings from back then. I watched some of your hearings and then some of you got emails from me saying, Hey, I could talk to you over the weekend if you want.
Cuz we had a pretty tight timeframe to put this agenda together and I wanted to hear from board members what you're thinking and what your hopes and dreams were for this time together. We don't get to spend time together in person all that much. So I really wanted to make sure that we put together an agenda that reflected the overall hopes and dreams of this group. So Shirley did a really nice job of reviewing the agenda, so I won't do that again. I'm going to start us out with some slides that I've actually recycled from other groups that have been dealing with similar issues that I'm hearing are happening here. Some of them might just feel like they don't even apply and I'm just gonna kind of go over them. But I would invite the board if there's something that you think that kind of stands out to you, you know, we can stop and unpack and talk a little bit more about those things.
We've got a couple of slides that focus on your, your statute, you know, and the language. And I'd really like for us, I know that you guys have gone through it so many times, but I'm still sensing a little bit of disconnect on that, so I'm just hoping we can make sure and take a temperature check that we're all on the same page about what the department's doing, what the board's doing, and have that conversation and, and are there some information gaps in the statute that you know are, are causing us barriers. And then surely mention that we've got this board matrix, so we'll talk about that. We don't have the planning session scheduled to start until the afternoon. I'm happy to start this morning if we get through that, you know, if that's acceptable with the agenda. I don't know, you guys just tell me if I'm getting outside of the lines here with the public noticing and all that good stuff.
And I just really wanted to work with a bunch of like-minded folks and do the best we could. And then of course we got the I I J A money and it was so we really have an opportunity to do something here. So that's fine. Thank you Shirley. I'm just gonna go round stuff. Okay, Juan. Sounds good. Winta airs and I have spent 40 years working in community and economic development living in and working for coastal communities. And my why is multilayered it, it starts with that. But honestly my why is because I can't imagine Alaska without the last month. I just think it's so much a part of our identity and so much a part of what is unique about Alaska and that the system has worked well and serves communities in the past. And there's no reason in my mind that that can't continue to be the fu this what happens in the future. So it's just part of the Alaska brand and it has to be, it has to exist. I I firmly believe that. So I'm a a student of the system. I'm a customer of the system and I'm a critic of the system and all of those things are because I want it to work well for Alaska.
Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of a old hat cause I go back to when we were very happy in Kodiak when they had, when they came winter time and we one path down the road for us so we could get out of our houses. And then when I became involved in the legislature, it, it kinda highlighted what was going on as far as dollar value that the state had. And when you looked at the ferry system, I thought we were doing pretty good. I was glad and happy when we had one ferry every two weeks. And other people can the arm and the other people in other communities want see higher level of service going back to my own data, but have one road clean page, then you have to start wondering just exactly how much can you afford to do work. You've got hundreds of communities in this coastal system that don't have very systems yet some do.
And it becomes a balancing act of trying to figure that out and how much money you must spend. Norway has got a permanent funds of 600 and some billion and we've got 80 billion. So when you go to Norway, you can drive anywhere you want to go out there, cross the bridge, you ferry every community, but you can't last. And so how do you balance that out as a legislator? When I was involved, I didn't get that deeply involved with it as I should have. I left the legislature. I thought that putting 40 billion, $40 million into design of a new system was that's all we needed to do. Legislative. Here we are, how many years later still trying to design the design that we put 40 million in budget form. And so sitting here, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to get involved. Cause I could see things were not going the way I had his vision or had thought that they should have thought.
And I bring to the table, I think more of a holistic view of what we need to do on the ferry system rather than hands on. Some you, both of you guys are involved every day on it. And so I expect to turn around and when I got a question to ask you what's going on? But at the same point in time, we as a board have to a larger look at the whole system and how we're gonna be in five, 10 years from now and set our goals to, to get us there. And and that includes, I believe in our inner reaction with legislature and the government to get us there. And I think that the bill that at HB 63 that formed us gives us those openings, talked about capital that talks about the reporting to the government legislature. So I would like to, from my perspective, to see us more what we're doing and trying to figure out where we and how we're getting, that's part of what I hope today is that conversation.
What is our real role and how do we get Thank you Deputy Rob Carpenter. Deputy dt and been here thinking, do I be flip this and just say I'm required to be here by, But all that aside, you know why I'm here really though is, you know, I love D ot. I've worked at 20 years my prior life is with the legislature in finance division doing physical analysis, all kinds of topics. I worked with D O T a lot of that and that's kind of how I got the job here. So I been working with the Marine Highway system on their budget and their operations and everything from the legisla side for a long time. And since I've been here about two and a half years now at D O T and I've always said it's an extension of our highway system. It's, you know, d OT is a, we run transportation and that's part of it for those communities that we can't reach by road. It is a road and, and it's, you know, these are exciting times. We're doing a lot of really neat things and with, it's nice to have the money, which we haven't had in a long time.
We have another struggles as a result of, you know, the the accruing and the changing workplace. But challenges bring opportunity and this board, you know, I agree with a lot what, what senator was saying that I I really want us to be effective. We, the department really wants to work with the board and, and do things together. And so that's why I'm here.
I meant to say in my opening comments, I don't think I get through a meeting these days without talking about how we've got money coming and we have staffing issues. Like that's every meeting. It doesn't matter what sector we're talking about. So Yeah. Yeah. You're norm. Okay. Who's next? Cynthia? Norm.
Well, my story in, I'm a retire Alaska State trooper Commander, I was stationed at Petersburg Black Anchorage and I spent a lot of time on the ferry traveling around. My parents were out in LIC and I'd catch the ferry over there to see him whatnot once they retired and moved out to this little town. I've always been one to be involved in community service and I, I was enrolled as with the Chamber of Commerce. I've been the president of it for about 15 years now. Deputy, my wife, both her objection, she's a secretary treasurer. So we worked hard on keeping an economy going on up here, announced it on the Pelican City Council. And I can tell you the system is so crucial to the economies of coastal Alaska, whether it be in Pelican or interact, those, those folks over there, out there, it's my objective to all I can to make this system work and put in my or in the water. And that's, that's my goal. Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks Norm. Cynthia? Hi. Good morning everybody. Cynthia Burns from the Village of Old Harbor. I'm a member of the IUC Tribe Gold Harbor and a shareholder of former native corporation. I serve as Vice president Old, our native corporation. And since 2006 I've worked with our community, with our city tribe and village corporation to really build our economy and infrastructure in our community. And transportation plays a big role with that. We work closely with representative in to in the legislature to get a lot of the infrastructure built in our community. Building a new dock harbor that could support the test and the Kennecott expanding our airfield. And of course they gonna run side VOT during all of those projects. And so I, it's really important for me, I was appointed by the governor, but I really wanna be here to have a voice for the smaller communities.
A lot of our, our village community members are going in and out on the ferry from Kodiak, but it's also really important to have that connection with the, the smaller ports. And we previously did have some service mold harbor when the state did come into a deficit, we stopped receiving service. And it's just really important to get that back up and running and, and making sure these smaller communities are, are getting service can only imagine to get a vehicle in and Outable Harbor is gonna cost you $10,000. So having that ferry service is crucial. Being able to bring vans of groceries as opposed to paying 83 cents per pound has a big impact on our stores. So it's, it's really important to me to see the ferry system continue, be successful, and be able to serve all of our cluster communities. I'm excited to be here today and to work with you all and hopefully have some great results by the end of day. Thank you. Nice to be done, Cynthia. Okay, well
I'm Paul Johnson. I started with the fairies working in 1974 when the Columbia was new. Worked for the fairies as an engineer for 10 years, then I went offshore, worked on ocean going ships, went into management and worked with US flag companies and farm flag companies. They came back to the Faires when the Konic got, was built and retired and worked with the Ocean Ranger program for a while. And now I'm retired. I guess I'm, I'd like to see the Faires operate efficiently and hope I contribute toward that
I am Keith Taylor. Yeah, I'm, my other job is captain the Maduka. And then strangely enough, I volunteered to become a board member with the idea of seeing some effective change come to the Marine Highway for its, its, its future. The, i I think the Marine Highway has lost a lot of, it's, how do I put this? It's lost a lot of its of what it, what it could be and what it should be. We go back to the sixties when, when the Matt, the MAL being and the Matt Nuka were first belt and, and the welcome they have and the amount of, of communities and, and and public that those boats have served throughout their lifetime. And now we're here back on the, the same front again, trying to get some more ships built to, to take us and carry us in the future and provide for the people of Alaska. So my, my goal coming here was to hopefully affect some change and, and provide better service to the, bring the trust back from the people that they have a reliable,
I'm just very proud that the circle was all very good. Everyone went right. We got everyone. Cool. Well thanks for, that was kind of a little bit about me cuz I just wanted to hear all together. I know y'all know each other, but thank you for going through that. I'm gonna shift gears and go through a couple of slides that I brought along. I'm gonna go a little bit quick cause I, I don't know how much of this y'all really even want, but I would just let invite you to raise your hand. I think so how does it work? If Norm raises his hand, do I see it?
Or he'll just do this? That works too. Okay. I just don't wanna forget about Norm. Can I ask him real quick? Norm can on your computer. There you go. Why you do all perfect. And I don't mind if it's just one or two, but I'll tell you I had 26 people online in a room like this last week and that was a little much. So I can't forget about those, those folks. Okay, so I saw the PowerPoint was up earlier. Is it, Let me pull it up. Cool. So your board, your state board, you know, that I've have to come and do some interesting things by boards that are, that are struggling. And so I'm just gonna share some of the lessons learned. You know, sometimes there are boards that have people that have never been on any board before. The other thing that happens is we get maybe people that are used to the nonprofit sector and now all of a sudden they're on a public board and they're kind of doing things though we're a nonprofit and, and they are very different. So I, I usually talk about three kinds of boards just to really distinguish what they are and how we can kind of think about who we are as a board. So the, the for-profit board has a, oh yay, I get to be okay. That's way better than me barking. Okay, cool.
So your your for-profit board. Does anybody, I mean, does anybody here have a corporation? Are you for-profit? Oh yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I have a corporation, you know, the purpose of a for-profit board is to represent their shareholders. The goal of the organization is profit. Sometimes we do good too. I like to think that my company does good. But yeah, so you've got board members that represent those interests and they have a very important management role. So I don't know if to be, if you wanna talk at all about that. Yeah, I think people can kind of know what that means. I have, I have a board and it's me. I am the president, the vice president, and the treasurer of my board. And we have meetings and we don't do that well at our minutes, but it's a thing, right?
Like that's an actual board and then there's real big corporations and sometimes people have private sector experience and they come into a board like this and it's not the same thing. Right? And then we've got our nonprofit boards. I bet there's a lot of people in here. I think I know many people that, So you've got your nonprofit boards. I actually was asked to do a training with a, a public board who had established a nonprofit and didn't know the difference between their role on the public board and the nonprofit. And so that was an interesting, but they really needed just like that 5 0 1 <inaudible> training. I do a lot of those, a lot of those nonprofits. And so the, you know, the nonprofit board experience is different than a public board. It is. Can you go to the next slide actually, I think, Oh, there we go.
That's why we are board. So what do I click? 20? The right hand one. The, Yeah, the scroller. The scroller. There we go. All right. That's funny. How I didn't realize I had controlling. So, you know, you've got nonprofits that have a mission. When we get into nonprofit war training, one of the most common issues is roles and responsibilities between the board and staff. Where really the board, there's a hard line between the executive director, that's the, I mean that is the most common issue. The other thing is this fiduciary and legal responsibilities that's different like than a public board, right? I mean you have theoretical responsibilities around the financial, but that's, it's a different thing, right? And so having them understand that when they're on a, a nonprofit board and frankly the difference, I've had public boards where people wanna see the budget and they wanna think they're teeth in to some of the financial decisions that are really kind of not their role.
And then there's the fundraising and personal contributions. Sometimes we spend a lot of time on that. All right, so this is actually, this is from the state website. I actually haven't gone back to see if it's been updated in the last year or so. But these are some of the different types of public boards. And this gets to authority, I would say, you know, there's a lot of hybrids out there where there's, you know, maybe advisory boards that are making, making decisions, you know, and they kind of just get rubber stamps. So even if they technically don't get, you know, have that authority that's happening, there are boards that actually have authority over things like professional licensing, right? Like you are actually voting on someone's livelihood and on their license you're making decisions about, you know, corrective actions. These are some boards that I've been involved in.
A few of them. I was actually involved in the passing of the legislation. Five of the, I didn't mention this, I, I don't tell everybody, but five of the last 10 years I've actually been asked by clients to register as a lobbyist. So I do have a little bit of legislative experience. But back in the Denali Commission days, one of our priority projects when I was wearing that hat was to get the renewable energy fund advisory committee established. And the commission actually had provided some seed funding for that entity while that legislation was getting passed. And I, that one I put on this list just because one of the things I find really interesting about your board is that you actually do have legislative branch representation. And that's not something you commonly see. I mean it's, it's, it's not, it happens, but I think most boards, you see kind of this whole traditional governor appointment type thing happening.
So the engineer showed up and they said, you need to be a technical board and by the way you need to pay us. And so then like that kind of nailed the cops and shut and made it a policy board in the end. That's my understanding anyway. I, I'm not an expert on that one, but I think that those are interesting questions when we think about your work. So that's why I threw these up here. You know, are we, how much are we getting into the technical with the work that we do? You've got a lot of technical expertise on this board. Are you gonna go through every single project? Probably don't have the capacity to do that. So how do you find that sweet spot and you know, maybe you need more capacity. And that's part of what's on our agenda. So Senator,
To that point that you just made, I mean that's conversation have a little bit more independently when you talk to legislatures about why this board was format, that's what they want. Technically they want you to get right down to the technical, they want you down at the bottom digging into everything. And then on the other side, you might talk to somebody from the OT that says, no, that's not what you're supposed to do. We want you just come in on the overview and give us some advice. So
I would maybe call that a, I don't wanna call it a pinch point, but when we talk about aligning ourselves, you know, finding that where is that spot where you can reasonably plug in? And I'm just telling you like when I was working at the Denali Commission for 10 years, there was no way our advisory committee could weigh in on every single project. So there needs to be some level of trust in the process where, you know, when, when the team at D O T is bringing a package forward, you know, how do you plug in? And that doesn't mean you can't weigh in on projects, but like is there a threshold where, you know, things are on your agenda? I, I don't know. Ett Yeah, I, I mean I think the tension and, and when I use the word tension, I don't, I don't mean it in a negative way sometimes, you know, systems are designed with a certain level of tension cuz that's what you need.
You need some friction in order to find where the, the sweet spot is where you need to be working. But it, it feels to me like all the, the tension is always kind of around the, the ask a little bit about what, what, what Alan is talking about. The, the idea of how, how deep to dig in on, to me, I feel that we have to agree at, you know, at maybe the 40,000 foot level about what are the, the, what's the purpose of the system and what are the standards by which it should be operated. Most of which I think are met. I, you know, I feel like we've been very fortunate in terms of safety and, and service delivery and, and those things within the resources that are available. But what are the overall standards that the system should operate at and then measure performance against those standards.
And to me, I feel like that's the, the piece that, for example, as an advisory board or a largely advisory board to be able to say we have an unacceptable level of, of unplanned maintenance activities that are taking the system or a portion of the system offline. And we wanna see that reduced by a certain percentage over time and meet the performance standard that we want for the system. And so those are the kinds of things that I was expecting this board to focus on. I think that this system, we, we came to this role at a time when the system was under a lot of stress in terms of the, the last few years, their level of resources, the level of service, and obviously the sort of the macro issue being operating in Covid for a couple of years. So we have all of those things that are sort of, you know, bricks, extra bricks on the load, if you will, about getting to that point of what is the, what is the service standard that, that the system needs to meet and how well are we doing in that regard?
And then concurrently the department is doing what the department has to do. And so there's always this sort of like, you know, you can see over the fence that there's that activity going on over there and it's like, well is that what we're doing or is that what you are doing? And how do we, how do we reconcile and align what our as a legislatively mandated thing And what is a line agency at the state that has to continue operating well, I think what Juan just described is actually a nice into the statute. And so those are, those are the next slides that I'm gonna walk through. But before we do that, we just wanna pause for a second. Also the point of order. I don't think we talked about any breaks. And so if it's acceptable for us to just move along without breaks, I don't know how, usually you're on the phone, so I dunno in the room, but if, if you just need a comfort break, I would just invite folks to take that.
Does that, or do you actually wanna take a break? I think that works, but I'd also, let's just kind of check time, but when we get done with this item six, before you move into seven, let's just take a quick break. I know some folks need to catch up on some news and texts and Sure. Maybe just do a Yeah, we've been at this for an hour. They say 90 minutes at least for the Zoom folks, that's when you need to get from a break. So, okay, so let's, I keep creating, I have control there. All right, let's talk about authority. So 63 is eight pages long and I pulled what I think are the important point and got rid of the as blah, blah, blah and all of that stuff that I think makes some eyes roll on the back of their heads. And I tried to just pull the language, pull the actual language from the statute.
So this has a, a list of the department duties. So those either kind of like familiar with the legislative process. When you look at the bill, it, it is like the, I think the things that are new or underlined. So everything above, if I'm understanding this, you know, I put in bold eight and nine, those, those are new, right? And so these are department duties to review and respond. I mean, I'm happy to read the stuff up above, but that's not new. But to review and respond to recommendation, I would maybe kind of highlight that key term recommendations regarding the statewide transportation improvement programs that are made by the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board established use. I try to take all the statutes out of there anyway. So there you go. Review, this is a department duty is to review and respond to recommendations of your board. All right? And then to report in a manner that's easily available to the public and the media, including on the department's internet website, on the progress of the Alaska Marine Highway system and meeting the performance goals established by the sport.
Yeah. Are you, are you saying that these are our duties? These are the department duties dot, Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so I've got a couple slides for coming, but Right, like, so everybody gets this part or is there any confusion about this? Eight and nine are new. These are the new ads. I think it just highlights four. So we're required to establish performance or performance goals. It says that to close to D ot. Yeah, it says that, but it says it under their duties. So I think that's kind of interesting. So let's look at your duties and we can come back and cause it. I, I mean I've spent a lot of time looking at this language. Cause it, it's interesting. All right, so, so under board duties, I think I have four slides here. You've got two shalls and you've got two May. And we understand the difference between Shell and May, right? I don't need, Okay. Anybody can do, let me know. All right. So the board shall provide a device and recommendations. There's that. Our work, again, recommendation, the commissioner of transportation public facilities concerning the operation and management of the Alaska cover and highway system, including, and then there's this big long list of bullets here.
So recommendations regarding business revenue, reducing cost, personnel management, commercial service options, ship maintenance, construction and repair, fleet strategy, reliability, regulatory compliance, other service objectives. No big deal. I mean, I just, I'm just, Can you guys do that? I mean, how, how many meetings are you gonna have to do all that? I just wonder, I'm just kind of throwing it out there. This is a tall order. Okay. So let's see what your other she is. All right, so this is specifically providing recommendations on the statewide transportation improvement program. So that's call that a stick, right? So those are your two shelves. And I actually tried to get this certifi on the other side, but it, Right, so you've got a couple of Mays and then maybe we can come back if you, if you wanna look at this again. So there's this, the board may recommend corrective action or determines that the Alaska Marine Highway system has deviated from a plan, policy or procedure described in the short plan or comprehensive long range plan. The board may prepare a report recommending corrective action, and then there's two shelves after that. This is in May, but then if you do it, you got two. Shes, it needs to be electronic and it needs to go to the legislature and the governor that I, I'm a little confused about that. Procedurally, can we put a timeline on this?
So it's in May. Oh yeah. Are you, are you thinking this, these two Well there's, it's confusing because there's an overarching may statement and then there's supporting shadow clauses. And then look, Yeah, it's, I found it confusing too. I looked at this several times, so I just wanna sort of honor that if it is confusing. But it is, I was referring to the electronic report. Yeah. So can I just point out, I think there's just some governance inconsistencies in the way this bill was written because it's directing us to advise the commissioner, but then to prepare a report to the legislature and the governor and so it, it, it's, it just feels a little sloppy in terms of the drafting Yeah. In terms of thinking of the, you know, lines of responsibility. Yeah. The org chart part of this is not, it is, seems in conflict with the language.
Okay, thank you. And that also puts to peace, right? Right. Exactly. But so what I would say is that, I mean, I've always come at this from a standpoint of advising the legislature at more so than the commissioner or the governor on recommended corrective action. Yeah, because I, I mean, I mean, it's a public, it'll be a public document regardless of who it's pointed to. But we are a legislatively mandated board. And so, and they're directing us to do things or maybe do things. And again, it'll be a public document, but the, the, the question is the so what of delivering a work product, who, who you point to? If it's for the legislature, the legislature may draft legislation to do something. If it's pointed to the commissioner or the governor, they could do through administrative, just administrative processes or administrative order or just, you know, internally within d o t, take that advice, say thank you very much, put it in a drawer.
And that's all you ever see about. I'm not saying that's what's gonna happen, but you know, that's what could happen. And or they could say, Thank you very much, this is great guidance. We'll integrate it into our planning processes. So there's nothing, there's nothing that mandates follow up action as a result of what we do here it for anybody really. It's, it's whether or not they are, they're gonna choose to take the advice. Yeah, yeah. But, but it does seem in internally inconsistent in terms of the language about what, what we shall do and what we may do and who the, the work product is directing.
I definitely not having been involved in any of the development of this as an outsider, I read this as, if you choose to take correct, recommend corrective action, these are the steps for doing that. And you may or may not choose to do so, but if you do choose to do so, those are the things that you must do. That's the way you do it. And there's a couple more maze, and then I think it might be helpful. I've got a slide on the actual short and long term planning, which I think kind of ties this all together. And then let's go. Okay, so work. All right, so here's another May. And I heard from some board members when we talked individually about this idea of committees maybe doing some of this work for this idea that you've got like all these things, right? That was a really long list of, of tasks that you're given.
You know, are you really gonna do that at a full board? You know, or d needs to maybe have some. So anyway, I think when you guys talk about committees that this is what you meant, but I don't know. So this language, you have the ability to establish a task force that are, may include people that are not members of the board, maybe they're subject matter experts. And, and then it says, investigating matters. So, and so to me that sounds a little bit different than like work group, right? And so I don't know if I'm connecting the dots incorrectly, but members of the task are not entitled to, you know, repeat salary per,
So I'm on the board's website here and it says, the board shall provide advice and recommendations to the commissioner, transportation and public facilities concern, the operation and management of the Alaska Brain Highway system. That goes back to this slide that you've listed our data under that. That's the, yeah, that's the, Okay. So to me that's, it's very clear what we to do or to, you know, put together a long range plan and a short term plan to give cot some advice to turn our recommendation is gonna turn the operations around. And it sounds to me like the, the one that we're we're talking about is the board shall annually submit recommendations two, you know, it says right there two d o t regarding the, the step, but also that we should like, it sounds to me like that one is just describing, you know, we're where to put together a, some kind of electronic means of saying this is what we did, this is what we came to for this year. That goes to legislation and government. I mean we're just tying it together. We're saying we made these recommendations and we're sharing it not only with the public but with dot. They want us to set up to them, but they listen to different story.
Yeah, I mean, I, I I, one of the number one comments I heard when I talked to individual board members was, we keep going in circles. Can I argue that this feels very circular and like by design, I think we've got some circular things going on. So I, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna segue into the last slide here cuz I think it gets to what you're talking about. And this is a short, so then there's actual language in the statute about what the short and comprehensive long range plan is and who's doing what. So let's see if this helps. Were confusing. So the d o t in consultation with AM hop shall, shall prepare a short term plan and comprehensive long-range plan for the development and improvement of the Alaska Marine Highway system and revise an update that short-term plan annually and the comprehensive long range plan at least every five years. Okay? And then there's some details of what the short term plan must include means by which effective and efficient progress for priorities and goals defined it, defined by the comprehensive long range plan include recommendations for state operations and capital budgets.
A description of skill or competency gaps in the membership of the amcom, which we actually have on the agendas day. So even though the department got the lead on developing that, you know, you're providing recommendations at least on that. And then the comp plan includes priorities and goals. And I'm gonna talk in a little bit about like what you might define those as proposed strategic maintenance and vessel replacement plan. Recommend performance measures including output, efficiency, effective measures that department shall submit. Both the short term and comprehensive long range plans and revisions and updates to the plans, to the legislature and the governor and make the plans available to the public. So I, I feel like there's been a little bit of disconnect about who's doing that step, at least for the plans. So I'm just gonna stop there cuz I'm not, I'm just telling you what I'm reading. And so you guys may have your own interpretation and Senator,
And I think that's gonna be really important for us moving forward. And, and I'm glad and Alan, I I agree with you completely on the language on HV 63. It is not our job to write the long term plan or the short term plan. However, we need to be a part of putting it together. The, you know, the project today for us putting up the elements, things that we think are important to be in that plan are, are that it's a recommendation that A D O T has, you know, they're required to go through these planning process and we just as a board at the end of today, I'm hoping that we're able to show, you know, formally these are, these are elements and items that we feel are very important for you as you move forward in this planning process. And that's what we're gonna be looking for to, to see how those all connect.
But again, there, you know, there's, there's a real big missing link for this board and that is direct access to information from kco and, and it's been almost from the start and you know, just having someone on the line to answer a question here and there is not, that's not satisfactory. And again, it's just to understand how many options were looked at, Paul know this. Yeah. How many options were looked at and if this decision was made, we'd probably agree with it if we'd understand how you got to it and who was involved in that decision making, I think that would just clarify things and these things greatly and help us get to, you know, our shelves. That's a pretty big list of shelves. And then the last thing I would say, in terms of tasking, possibly a committee off to decide, one that I could see maybe that would be helpful would be on the personnel, the recruitment and retention.
Cause I would be, I would be concerned about putting together task force task forces who are to investigate because they're gonna tie up a lot of staff time and staff is already doing other things and trying to work with us. So I would caution us to be very discretionary if we wanna put together a whole new task force. Cause we really don't need him if we're getting the information that we need so that we can look at the options, we can see the justifications and then stop going over the same ground over and over and be able to move on.
So I don't wanna move on until I'm just really sure that everyone's crystal clear on the steps. And so what I, I just in summary, d o t is developing a plan and I, you know, if there's anything else d o t wants to say about that, I don't wanna speak on their behalf, but there is a planning process that will be happening. And so I, I've heard a, a couple of folks as we've been talking over the last few weeks, you know, it seemed like there was a perception this body might be actually developing the plan and I just wanna make sure that that's crystal clear.
Bit of insinuation there. That's kind of hard not to but, but I'm gonna try to not really go there. I do want to introduce Joanne Schmid, who is our new Marine highway planner coming from a long history of planning in the program development planning. So that's really exciting. It took a while to get there. She's here today And maybe Joan, if you get a little background on just real quick, I don't wanna take the boards ton of time, but you know what your, your history is on planning and Sure. Yeah.
And I would just like to add to that, you know, as a 52 year resident of Southeast Alaska and over 25 years of service, you know, whether that was being a volunteer fireman, emt, you know, behavioral health planning, you know, whatever it is, I may be d ot, but I I just took my fellow ask and that's really important of the day that that's I
I, it's, it is certainly a lobby. I'm an AM planner, but I did respectfully request that I please be able to bring my 14 Harvard program with me. I've been working with those people for years. You know, every harbor master across the state, you know, those are my people, you know, and, and it's my job to help them get funds and, and really complete projects. So there's that. And then, you know, the commissioner just released or he just, he presented at the Ports and Harbor program, the Alaska waterways program, which is a new thing and, and still, you know, in concept. But you know, that's really attractive to me too. I worked in a coastal management program for four years until they sun sided it. And you know, to me there was a lot of really good work at the community level that, that was lost. And I, I cannot speak for the commissioner or, or where they would be going with the Alaska waterways program, but I really see a lot of value in synergy in a group like this clarifying our intentions, developing a mission, and then operating as a team. And I'm really ready to do that and work with all of you.
I've, I got a couple, Go ahead Rob. I've got a couple more question calendar. You know, we were trying to get the same dedicateds planner for a sense of, it was like when that re report group their report like if we need to back dedicateds planning for years and then this new board formed and we are not with liaison for the board. So that's now finally come to fruition. We're excited to have Joanne really focused on that. And that's been a missing part and, and that she would be integral working with the board on the consult, the consult of the long range plan for plans, the long range plan as you know, such a big thing that we are bringing consultant for that with the shorter short range plan. We've gotta start on it. Two end could jump in further with that and then that just can develop.
So the, I have two questions. So I, I think part of the, the confusion about infor the flow of information, just to give an example, is not to last meeting with the previous meeting, Katherine told us that the, the Columbia was gonna be out running November 2nd. The next day I go to, I go to work and I'm telling people, Oh you gotta, Columbia is gonna be out in November 2nd. They're like, no, that's, that's done. That's, that's gone. That's like, that's not happening. And it's like, so that's where my confusion is, is here, you know, I'm coming out of a board meeting and we're being told this is gonna happen and I go back to the fleet and everybody knows it's not happening. So how is that sharing of accurate information when, when you're, when you, you guys, as our liaison is telling us one thing and then the whole, the fleet already knows that that's not happening
On on my thing, we, the meeting was on a Friday afternoon, the meeting included at three 30. DT doesn't work on weekends. I go to work on Saturday and it's completely changed from Friday at three 30 to Saturday. So, and it just, it, I think it makes the whole bar look bad when I'm coming in. I'm like, no, no, they just told the board this yesterday and I'm relating it to the employees and they're like, they're like, well everyone knows this isn't gonna happen. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. So for me personally, it that right there is a, is a, a like a black mark on the board because we're, we're supposed to be here to, to understand what's going on and, and, and, and be in the know and, and it kind of like a, a definite feeling of not being in the know. So I understand what, this goes back to what Shirley was saying, things I don't, I'm not, there's not an assignment of blame, it's just that it's, it's, i i I don't think that there is the right number of people being brought in some of these discussions. So of how we're coming up with the schedule Sorry, go ahead.
I I just wanna say that, you know, I, again, I served on the marine highway reshaping work group prior to this. And so I've been involved in a lot of these discussions really over the last three or four years. And there there's always this push me polio about diving in deeply on operational detail versus living in the space of what is the system supposed to do and is it doing that? And, and yes, you can't know that it, the system fully know that the system is doing what it's supposed to do, how it's performing against those measurements unless you know some of those operational details. But like for example, I don't wanna know that that, you know, that there was an unplanned yard, there was unplanned yard time because a widget went down on a vessel. I don't need to know that. I just need to know that there was unplanned downtime that interrupted service that was expected by Alaskan and that's not okay.
And so how do we correct the system to make that not the case? Those, that's the level that I think that we should be operating at. I don't want, I mean does it mean that operationally there needs to be a deeper inventory in widget so that plan unplanned downtime doesn't happen? Maybe that's the case, but I don't know that I'm never gonna know that, I'm never gonna be able to recommend that cuz I don't work at that level of detail. What, what I'm interested in is the system working for one of, to, to put it another way, for example, this system has a long history of building vessel that it doesn't have the shoreside facilities to operate. So you can't have floating stock that doesn't line up with shore infrastructure and deliver on service. So to me, an investment standard for the system is that floating stock investment and shoreside investment has to occur concurrently in order to come to the point of service delivery when that vessel is supposed to be online.
My guess is you probably don't have that but you know, having the ability to kind of negotiate this with the folks that are providing you support, you know those are conversations that are really important before you make decisions about what you're gonna take on. You know, we've talked about most of these other things so I think that's about it. I think this idea that there's a certain expectation of you know, information. And one of the things I wanna share with you is I heard two prominent things as I was about information sharing. I heard we have been getting great information from D O t would love to get more information and we also, I also heard we're getting too much information so like you're not quite in alignment. That would be my assessment in terms of like what is the appropriate level of information that you all should be getting or desire from and, and it's even possible from D ot.
So I just wanna share that. So I think this is a nice breaking point when we come back. So I have to click and then do this. So when we come back we're gonna switch gears and talk about competence review. I really hope that this discussion is sort of planning the seeds for some of the things you wanna get up on the wall so we can kind of unpack some of this stuff a little bit more this afternoon. I am gonna say 10 minute break which will bring us back at 10 30. And actually before I do that, Norm are you still with us? I haven't asked you if you had anything to add in a while so I'm sorry about that.
Are we on? Oh wonderful. All right, well welcome back everyone. We should get a few extra minutes so thanks for your patience. I am told that we have some individuals from the state that are available to answer some project specific questions. So we're, we are a little bit ahead of schedule so we are gonna allow a little bit of time for that and I'm not gonna get their names right so someone could help me. Who is it that we have online? Is that a same question?
Question? Yeah. Is Greg, Greg are you on? Yeah, let's back there. That Greg, can you hear us? You Uhoh? No, we can't hear you. They take the headphones out. They never were it we're able to hear Norm though, so that not Norm. Can you hear us okay? Yes, can Mute can't talk Greg can you try it without the headphones? Maybe we can't. I don't know if you can hear us but we can't. Yeah, I can hear you this norm. Thank you Norm. Make sure, make sure you use your audio source that it's, if you've got a mic built into your headphones that you're pointing to it.
So we, we have instituted in the design of the vessel a nominal capacity for some battery power storage, which will allow us to have basically future proof as battery technology advances. We'll have the infrastructure in place to expand that. Right now we're looking at one battery room with about 3000 kilowatt hours worth of capacity, which will allow us to do spinning reserve, which is, you know, if you run on one engine it allows you to take peak loads and then switch to having two engines online without having to worry about drops and propulsion capacity. And then it also will allow us to do what's called peak shaving. So basically you have some battery backup power available. So if you're in a heavy C or you experience increased resistance for any reason, instead of having to ramp up the engines, you can just pull that additional power from the batteries for that brief power spike. And then there'll be some opportunity for us to do some brief maneuvering on batteries only coming into ports or to do some dock side on battery only. It just gives us the capacity to use battery storage as the operations see fit and it integrates into the current diesel electric design. So it's basically just an expansion of that.
Does not affect timeline of delivery for the vessel. And we are currently exploring, again part of the, the conversation is what's the scale of the battery installed. Of course right now we have it is like this room and, and this, this amount of batteries won't impact the trim in stability of the vessel and won't impact fuel range of the vessel. So that was our starting point there. So we're still working through cost impacts on that. I'm obviously adding another system to the vessel does add some cost but with a reasonably size battery installation, it's not going to be a tremendous cost driver. I mean we are almost everything in a vessel of disor. You're talking millions of dollars but it, it is not an outsized cost. We're still pinning that down. Part of that conversation will be answered as we work with our propulsion system integrator contractor who we're looking to bring a board through RFP here in the very near future.
So those costs will be fleshed out and that will be part of the conversation. But we need to have a design start point, okay if we want to do batteries, what does it look like? And then of course there's also the funding conversation and I know there's others in the state that probably have a better handle on this than I do. But with the recent legislation for infrastructure improvement, there's a a lot of funding available to grants and other things to offset costs for hybrid technologies and emissions focused technologies. So I know we're working on trying to receive some of those funds, but in order to have that conversation you have to have an idea of what you might install and what you're looking to install. So it's kind of a chicken and navy argument but we figured we'd go through the design process, get it on board, see what it looks like and know what we're looking at.
So the TRV as previously think discussed with this group and relayed has been split into three different separate contracts. It's one project with three major contracts within it. One for propulsion system integration cuz that's a major focus of this project. You know diesel electric is something new to the state of Alaska. Battery integration is new to the state of Alaska. It's a high profile item. The vehicle elevator system, which is also a very high profile item for the vessels seeing its absolutely critical to our operations and was a major concern for our industry partners in the last rfp. And then obviously our shipyard. So the RFP for that propulsion system integrator contractor is in contracting right now being put together and we're looking to have that on out on the street next week, then followed shortly thereafter by the vehicle elevator system contractor and then shortly thereafter by the shipyard. They should all happen relatively quick success. Thank you
Greg. Can I ask follow up it Shirley? Hi, thanks for hi. So in terms of adding, adding batteries to the test mean replacement for passenger vessel, what has been the response of the coast guards on that, on that option number one or number two? You gotta have to change the hole, it sounds like the whole design to incorporate that. Can you, can you walk us through because at a passenger vessel's different than a cargo vessel in terms of alternative fuels.
So yeah, I, I can speak to that. So the first question was about the Coast guard. So we are in conversation with the Coast Guard on that and we are glosson again, this is part of this whole design background issue. Glosson is working on a basis of design document her and that is a conversation with the Coast Guard about what requirements will be instituted for the installation of batteries. As everybody knows our vessel will be classed with abs, ABS is still working on battery integration technologies and putting that into the rule set. The leaders on battery integration are DMV as a regulatory society. So we're working with Coast Guard trying to figure out what rule sets and how we will go about meshing the technology with the vessel in a safe and approved way. So that's a conversation ongoing and it has to, again, Coast Guard expects to see a base design.
So hey Coast Guard, this is what we're planning to do and this is what we're planning to follow, what is your position on this? So that's a, that's a happening evolution right now. And then as far as getting it into the vessel, there is not any change to the hall scan that needed to be done in order to fit these in. We have allocated space below decks for a battery room, sufficient size that can handle the firefighting, the cooling loads, all of that safely get all those into this space and yeah, it does not affect the vessel and there are issues with the Coast Guard and alternative fuels, but most of those rely around like LNG and other fuels that need special storage capacity. So they, for example, in the United States, Coast Guard will not allow you to store LNG below decks currently on a passenger vessel, which has caused issues with trying to do LNG passenger fairies at Washington State ran into that, but that does not apply to batteries. They have worked with Coast Guard Blossom, has worked with Coast Guard and other capacities with batteries and DV successfully to get everything below decks. And in fact bearing it below decks in a a very strong, very protective part of the vessel is is something Coast Guard has signed onto in the past.
It, it, it, we don't really need it because the, the battery integration truly is an add on. I know it sounds like a very big change for the vessel and it it has some intricacies with like, okay, how much do you need? Where do you put it? But at the end, if we decide to delete the system for any reason, basically we tell the contractors, okay we don't need these particular switchboard modules, we don't need these wiring runs and we don't need all the stuff in this room. And that room would become available for other uses as we see fit or reserved for later. We don't really need to do a full flesh design cuz all it is is it's, we just need to delete that auxiliary system. It it doesn't have that's right where to put this, it's not so integrated as like a mechanical approaching change where if you remove something you've really gotta redesign everything. The redesign is basically integrating it into the system and then once you delete it, you you've deleted it. I hope that makes sense. It's maybe a little difficult to describe. It's kind of an engineering conceptual thing, but the work to get it designed and understand what you need for it, there's an effort for that. But if you say you're not gonna use it, there's very little effort to that.
Okay. And I guess because the board has never seen any of the, the this new idea in the design, and again I just wanna go back because I have heard that there are whole designs, the whole is being, has to be redesigned for this. If, if I hear that can I categorically look at the person and say, no, that's not true.
That that is true. Surely that that is very true. There there is no need to redesign the hall for this. We have looked at the hall and, and made improvements to it because we had the opportunity to, with this fifth shift about what we call internally phase 11. Basically when we put the project back on full speed, we looked at requirements and we found some things have changed with stability. So we're gonna have to change our hall in order to meet new stability requirements. So we got a chance to go back and revise the hall, go back and do additional optimization on the hall. And we have wound up with a new haul form but that wasn't driven by battle battery technology that was driven by stability requirements changing the physical dimensions of the ship and a planned evolution to make sure that we have the most efficient haul form possible and we haven't seen significant gains in haul resistance or reductions in haul resistance due to this effort. So we are saving the state of Alaska operating monies yearly because we've done this effort to modify the haul form and we've also looked at how to make it more constructible despite being an advanced extremely efficient hole form.
It is actually. I will be sending out an email i, I hope I can get to it today, if not, it will be first thing Monday to what I internally call kind of like the advisory board, the the captains and the chief engineer on there and those that'll be coming out. We kind of had a pause while we were trying to figure out how we were working the CMG C thing and what the changes to the vessel might look like. So we had something to show the group and be like, okay, this is where we're at, what comments do you have? And that group has been fantastic, good comments provided, some really good input that has really made an impact on the vessel and we wanted to make sure we had all of that pushed in. I have been in communication with John Mayer and a couple others on the advisory board keeping them up to date on, you know, what we're looking for for our next meeting.
But yeah, we, we really wanted to have a cohesive package so we could sit down and make, it's very difficult to get all of them together at the same time because obviously they all have other duties. We have crew members that are on the boat and they really appreciate it from what my conversations when we have a good conversation to have. And it's not just small tidbits cuz it takes some effort and it is a commitment for them to come together on this. But I talked to John Mayer but on the phone the other day and we are working on putting together a meeting to go over all of this and I'm sure there will be comments that we will, we will put into our comments matrix and, and work through and provide response to and, and make some changes based upon that. As I said, the crew and the others on that advisory board have been very, very vocal and they have some really good ideas.
I that's not a hundred percent true. It, it does provide redundancy but really the, the benefit of batteries is in efficiency of propulsion. Just just to make a, a generalized statement about just one aspect of operation, if we were to look at just peak shaving, right? Peak shaving has shown in use by various operators where it's been installed a potential for one to one and a half percent fuel usage reduction. So if you look year over year over the life term lifetime use of the vessel, that's a major savings to the state. 1% may not sound alike like a lot, but in shift design you go to immense length to get 1% savings because it's like every day you operate that vessel that's 1% you're saving in fuel. So, you know, peak shaving gives you one to one point half percent and that's a pretty conservative measure.
Sometimes more, sometimes less. It really depends on how heavy a seed you're in and you know, with the TTUs amino we run in pretty heavy seas so we'll probably in the winter be using that peak shaving quite a bit. We may actually use up all the capacity peak shaving and then have to run standard, but at least it's there to reduce the burden. It allows you to run those engines at their most efficient, store up the energy and then use that energy again later when you'd have to run the engines in a much less efficient state. One of the other benefits too is that you get a maintenance benefit because one of the, one of the hardest things on engines is that load change. Especially when you're going from, I'm working in my optimal range and all of a sudden because of a wave or a sea state, I've gotta move into operating outside my optimal range and working harder and have to make that change very quickly.
That that is the roughest thing you can ask an engine to do. So you're reducing that scenario and you're looking at much less maintenance on the engines. And then that has been proved out by manufacturers and operators that have, have done the peak shaving and then there's spinning reserve which allows you to run on one engine, which means you might have to run a little bit slower, but if your schedule can do that, you get to run on one engine and turn one of 'em all the way off and you're looking at, you know, big fuel savings and obviously one of the engines isn't running so it's not accruing hours for maintenance. So those are some serious benefits beyond just some redundancy.
There is, there is a, a conversation about using batteries. Imports, unfortunately due to the elevator, the import loads are actually extremely high. So we initially looked at a scenario where we'd say we're gonna do a nominal port call all on batteries and that would've required a massive change to the internal layout of the ship. That would've required us to remove a lot of fuel and thus we wouldn't be able to have the redundancy and fuel that, that we desire to have when we're operating out of the chain. So we won't be able to do a full port port call without batteries, but we may be able to do, you know, we're sitting at dockside and we're not using the elevator, let's turn our generators off and run on battery for a while. So yes, in that case we wouldn't be admitting any emissions or you know, this is gonna be a really short turnaround port.
We have battery, battery available. It's a column C conditions looking for until we get to the next port, let's run everything until the batteries run out. So you'd have reduced emissions. The, the beauty of this battery installation that gives us the flexibility to do a lot of things we couldn't do before. And it's kind of like the term I've used with some of the designers and other people. It's the gateway drug into battery storage for amhs. You know, as the technology improves, as we maybe get shoreside facilities for shore power, you can integrate all this in and see, you know, compounding benefits into the future. And I, I think one thing I missed on Shirley's question earlier was this technology is going to be a thing in the future. You really can't avoid it. Batteries are gonna be a thing and we're looking at operating the TRB for the next 50 years, you know, nominally. And if we don't design in some capacity for batteries now the state's gonna have to pay a much bigger cost in the future to try to fit it into a vessel that wasn't designed for it. So again, there's a really big future proofing benefit to this.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that, Greg. And you say the gateway drug, but isn't this sort of an a, this drug's established already? It's, it's being used in industry successfully. And I mean we just went to that fair inter fairy conference and everyone in there was switching over to battery something. Yep. But like you say, we're kind of skating to where the puck's going a little bit here.
I would definitely say that there, as I said, there's no way batteries won't be a, a part of any future marine transportation environment in the state of Alaska just because that's where the industry and the regulations are going. It's where the funding is going as we've seen. And Alaska really needs to start learning about this and implementing it. And the TRV is a good place to do that with minimal impacts. I know everybody is concerned about schedule for getting this boat out here and it is definitely top of mind for the project team to, to get something moving forward. But we also have a responsibility to do that in a way that's, you know, on track with technology in the future. Again, because it's a 50 year boat and yes, you're completely right. This is not new in a lot of ways. Northern Europeans have been doing amazing things with batteries and we have a lot of lessons to learn from them.
Some US operators or brain batteries online, we have a lot to learn from them. And their usage scenarios may be very different than ours. You know, double-ended fairies on short routes that can go all electric aren't what we have. But that doesn't mean we can't integrate some of that technology and take some of the benefits even in our very unique operating environment. And that's definitely been a, a learning experience, which is, is good for all of us. You know, we, we work here in the state of Alaska to make sure that we, we can look into the future and, but you gotta learn to do that. Our design consultants are learning new things as we go through this and that's all lessons learned we can take into any future project.
Other questions totally helps Alan, just, just to comment. Yeah. When we started hearing about electricity or new batteries in, in the trv, people like myself that set out there were this blowing 60 miles off the barren islands and 20 foot seas, the reliability of a good engine obviously is very important. So it just raises that question when not knowing what you're really talking about.
I can kind of speak to that a little bit. So as I said that the battery system is an auxiliary system. It is truly like, I don't wanna say it and minimize it, but it's kind of a bolt on accessory. I mean there obviously more to it than that, but at the end of the day, if your battery system runs outta batteries or your battery system malfunctions or your battery system for for whatever reason isn't up to task or you don't wanna use it, literally just turn it off. And we are looking at the exact same propulsion system that we were looking at six months ago, a year ago, you know, when we made the switch to diesel electric because of, you know, requirements and efficiencies, we're still looking at that same exact system. We're looking at non sscr, non ure tier four engines, you know, generators, electrical distribution and then some kind of umm of things thruster in, in the stern into bow thrusters.
Up front is the exact same propulsion system. So adding batteries to it doesn't change that infrastructure and that ecosystem at all. It just adds a, a piece onto it that is optional. And then if it doesn't work, just turn it off. You know, say say we use a semen system or, or an ABB system for batteries and hey, something's gone wrong with it, or we need to replace a battery module and we can't use it. Just don't use it for however long it takes for the organization to get out there. And you haven't impacted your ability to operate the vessel. In our initial conversation with the Coast Guard, they see it as an auxiliary system and all of your basic metrics are already met. So you can continue to sail on and operate just as you always would just with maybe a, a small hit to your efficiency cuz you don't have those batteries there.
I, one last question Greg and I came, cause I know I, I was reading something about a battery fire and a vessel or ferry, I can't remember several months back. So in terms of, cuz I haven't seen it again. I don't know where it is. The battery room down under the hall and with that extra firefighting and, and I believe it would have to be, from what I've read prior, kept very separate from vehicles. Is this gonna change the vehicle carrying capacity of the test? Mean that was, that was a big part of the new testment design was carrying more vessel.
So we definitely have been very cognizant of the main mission of the trb, which is to carry passengers and vehicles cargo from point A to point B and, and to make sure that we are future proof as much as possible for increases in demand. So we have not changed the, the vehicle capacity or the, the cargo carrying capacity of the festivals all. So some of the conversations early on we're looking at like what do we do with these batteries? And again, we were talking about that doing all of the import with batteries and that was a huge battery bank and we're like wow, that's really gonna cause us to either cut fuel, cut cargo, that's not a good solution given that we really wanna provide the service state of Alaska. So we have skilled back knowing that hey, battery technology's gonna advance so let's get something in here that makes sense.
Gives us a benefit without really making us go back to the drawing board with the design or really having to change many of those previously set requirements. So no, we haven't impacted that. As you said that firefighting systems, there are very robust firefighting requirements for battery rules and battery storage systems. They have to have individualized firefighting systems, they need to have thermal monitoring. And the one nice thing about, as I've, you know, after Rob's question there we're not cutting edge on this, there was people who were cutting edge on this and a lot of lessons have been learned, like there's been several battery fires and all of those have led to improvements in thermal protections, firefighting and monitoring for battery systems. And all of those have been worked into Siemens AB corvus. All of these manufacturers have taken those lessons and really improved on those systems to ensure that they're safe and the regulatory bodies have been watching these things and developing better and better guidelines. And that's why we're, we're working closely with Coast Guard here in the beginning to understand what guidelines are best for us to use to ensure that we have a a safe vessel. And I can guarantee you anything we do put on board the vessel will be fully regulatory reviewed and approved and Coast Guard will be aboard or or we won't be able to do to do it.
Hey Shirley. No, no I was just saying thank you. I'm, there's a Facebook question online for Greg and I can read it. Sure. Says you said the whole design change was due to stability issues. What was the reason for the stability issue and what changes to St. Stability did adding the alternative energy propulsion, ie the batteries change stability and what was the reason for the whole design change? So that's kinda, Sure
I can definitely speak to that. So the change to stability or quote unquote stability issue and maybe that wasn't the best wording. I do apologize cuz that that's a scary concept. Stability issues. What happened was, is there was, there's rules for stability for vessels that come out of, you know, formulated rules from our regulatory bodies. And the rules changed saying that we had to comply with different compartment spacing. And I don't wanna get horribly technical with it cuz it's a very, very deep topic. But basically you have to meet these new requirements because it is now x, y, Z year. Okay your boat was not under contract by X time. So these new requirements which the international community and the United States put into place, you must meet. And we took a look at those requirements and the existing hall form didn't meet that. So what we had to do is we had to widen the vessel, which is never a happy thing to do, but in order to meet the stability requirements of the day, we widened the vessel.
And that really caused us to take a look at the whole entire whole form STEM disturb. Cuz widening a vessel makes huge impacts. We wanted to gain back some of the res resistance benefits from the previous design. Obviously you make a whole wider resistance goes up so it takes more to push her through the water. So that's why we went back to the drawing board with the HU to better understand resistance. We went to an outfit in Europe that is a specialist in hall optimization, gave them our new hall form and said please optimize this with us. And we saw a tremendous results, you know, two 3% reduction over the existing narrower haul, how much optimization we did. And as far as alternate energy, again, zero change due to alternate energy. All of the haul changes were already in process before we even started looking at batteries.
All we did is look at our internal volume and go, where can we find some room to put batteries? And honestly, once we had the conversation about let's kind of bound our battery problem, we were able to size a battery system to allow us to fit it into the existing space. We had to shuffle around a pump room and a couple other internal things but and eat into a little bit. There's a little less excess room in the MSD room, ate up a little bit of a void, you know, that kind of thing. But we didn't make any real changes. There's still sufficient room for all the existing equipment that was there and the new batteries. And we have sufficient, sufficient tankage for fuel and auxiliary fluids
Look. Great. Good presentation. Any other questions for Greg or I understand the captain is on as well while we've got them? Any questions for fy anybody for Captain f? I hope you're feeling better. I'm, I'm sorry to hear that you've been under the weather and the, and thanks for, for sticking shoot through with us.
Yes ma'am. Chair, I apologize I'm not there. I, I did have travel all planned quite a few weeks ago. I, I took a two week vacation and nine days of that was, was was in the lower 48. And on the first day back myself, my wife and my sister-in-law traveling with us, we all became covid positive. That was about nine days ago. So I'm working through that situation now. I just didn't feel well enough to, to travel today, but I, I apologize, I surely plan to be there with deputy commissioner and Matt today, but I am here for you listening.
Absolutely. I think that the only thing that, since I have you on be really helpful if, you know, this is really good information and, and this is something we've talked about in the past as board things don't always have to come forward for a full discussion and del deliberation by the board since we do make recommendations. But what I called ancillary information is really helpful for us. And something from engineering going over these, you know, the changes to the t v you know, the reasoning just, just a white paper, just a short white paper would, I think would've been really, really helpful in terms of us being able to try and understand the, the changes and also because we've been hearing conflicting information on those changes and we, we just need to make sure that we're getting the best information possible so that when members of the public or members of the press or whomever contact us and ask us about these specific things, we either don't have, you know, we don't wanna say, well I don't, I don't know, I don't know anything about that.
Or we don't wanna give the conflicting or wrong information as well. So I would, I would just ask as you know, we talked about earlier in the process that we, the board is able to get information directly from the engineering from whether it's Greg, I, you know, Cisco's not big on, he writes enough reports already, but, you know, getting information to the board in between meetings, just so we know what's going on and what changes are being made and why from, from that office and and from your office would be really helpful. So that, that's really all I had at this point, captain, but I think we'll be drawing you in after lunch for, for the larger conversation on from
Friday. Absolutely understand Madam Chair and I'll be here all day and you know, Greg is a great resource, you know, Cisco and his staff, they, they've got about a, you know, about a 50% loss of, you know, professional engineers, you know, within the engineering group. So he, and we're into overhaul, you know, time right now. So he, he's, he's pretty challenged. But Greg's a re a great resource. I stay in close touch with Greg and Cisco of course on the construction contracting officer on the contracting side of it. So I am very aware of what they're, they're doing and I, I think we're on the right track.
Well this is Jane again, thanks to both of you for joining and field questions from the board if we're ready to move on to the next agenda item. I think I'll go ahead and take us there. Seeing, no, I do wanna, can I just say something? I just wanna apologize to everybody. I have one work commitment today that I have to do and I'm not able to get on wifi here, so I'm gonna have to leave the building. I can see if I can get you a guest log in. Maybe. I, we, we've been through the whole thing. Thank you Bill. So I'm gonna have to leave and come back, but I'll try and be back by one o'clock cause I'll be leaving here in just a few minutes. I apologize. Okay, Thank you for clarifying that. So you're gonna come in, I'll figure out how to plug you in.
But you know, what we're, what I, what I hope we're trying to bring to the table is other lenses that help expand the, the, the view of the marine highway to be as effective in organization as it accurately can be. And I, I also told speaker students when I took the job, I said, Well, I'll take it, but my first duty will be to find somebody more qualified to replace myself. And, and I still kind of think that, I still think there's gotta be, I mean I've actually reached out to other people in maritime operations and said, I think, you know, we need to have more people like that on this board. So, you know, people who have more operational experience and can be more helpful in terms of innovation and moving forward and making a more effective ation. So that's, that's kind of where I'm coming from in terms of my role.
Thank you Juan. So I have the statute, I object to Juan's thinking she should be on the board. Yeah. Economic development. So this is how it reads. Customer interface. So these, all of these things are listed where I've got the bullets, right? This is the fun part of statute and then it ends with customer interface or experience management. And I, I don't know if the or is like for all of these or if it's customer interface or experience management, but that's how it reads. So that doesn't really help much. But just so you know, Yeah, I, you know, this was a very ambitious list and when I look at it, for me, there are several on there that, that really could be under one. When you talk about vessel, you know, repair, construction, ship maintenance, you know, somebody that has one or some of that, you know, individual and I'm not sure exactly what their intent was there.
Continuous improvement and quality management. What, what exactly is that? You know, I mean, if you're in a position of management position, if you've, you know, if you've been in logistics or project management controls, you better have those skills. You know, they, they kind of go together. So when I look at these, there, there are some that just rise to the top for me that are really, I think, valuable to folks who are going to, you know, make, advise and make recommendations alongside d o t with d OT or two dt, however you wanna phrase it for that. And I, I'm guessing that when matrix is filled out completely, there are only, there's only going to be a few places where it's light or not there. To me those are those kind of oddball, nebulous things like experience management, you know, quality management. That quality control is that, you know, does that belong in sales?
Does that belong in, you know, project coordination? I mean, so, you know, this is something we're required to do by statute. So my suggestion is that we fill it out individually for what we know that we can pass the red face test on of having experience and not just, you know, some knowledge of, And then just, I guess I don't, those would go maybe to, to my process interpretation, which I'm open other perspective. And when I looked at the draft short term plan, it, it looks like that's actually a section required in that annual short term plan. Yeah. And, and it's currently at the end and all of these are, are listed there. So my guess is that if you all fill this out, then that will give the department what they need to, to build that out and then come back and maybe have a conversation before that gets finalized.
I'm just, that's just my 2 cents that that makes comes to me. I mean that's the way they wrote it. I just have a thought. And it's based on way in which some disease do business government can operate just as a government, government operates more like a business and economic development is really a, a core concept for these facilities. And when I went to the inter prairie conference and was able to have lots of great conversations with European operators, species theories, Washington state fairies, New York, so particularly the, the other countries that that port that airport, the, the transportation infrastructure is the core part of economic development for, for that community. And some of these things here seem to speak to efforts to I guess use that transportation infrastructure to drive the economy in that community. And it's such a core part of us being able to transac that. So they may seem like outliers will sit here, but it seems to also kinda fall under economic growth and development. Well, it's in the law. So it's what we got, I apologize, I should have called on you next.
My way of thinking is, well first off it doesn't say ex politician under, so I don't know where to put my, but my way of thinking is that this afternoon we're gonna sit down and try to figure out exactly where we want to go and what our job really is and our core mission as a board and define ourselves and where we're gonna be. How deeply involved are we gonna get to getting to where short term long term claims. So until we define that, how do you define qualifications or the lack of qualifications on the board? And so when, and I'm also assuming that the legislation says identify these but actually identify at the year our yearly report will include description of what we think needs to be added or taken away or whatever. So we have time to do that, but I'd like to see us figure out exactly what we really want to do
I I think that with all due respect for making that a, a little more difficult than it needs to be. I I I look at this as they just simply said, here's what we want represented on the board, you know, to be the folks who are making recommendations working with the OT as such to this process. And some people are gonna have background experience that others don't have. And as a legislature, there is, there's are definitely places here that you have experience in because, because you have to, whether it's financial budgeting, et such planning strategy. And, and I think what way that I've read it and looked at it, all they want is the end of it in the shortterm plan of here, here's what, here's what's covered. You wanted all these things. Here's where you have board members who have these experiences and some of these places there are attending that could, because they're so nebulous, they don't, we don't know what they mean or they belong somewhere else.
Door too, so she may be wandering around trying in the other doors. There's a couple of entrance there. There's three apparently. So if you don't mind, I'm just gonna give her another minute or two from pretty dangerous. Saw her may talk today. I would, but so maybe just I,
Okay. We have a forum. Let's see. A couple of items before we get started. I guess we'll make this my report. It does say item two minutes approval. I am assuming from the September 9th meeting, but I have not seen those minutes so we're don't have any minutes to approve. I'd like to request that we get those out to the board and the public
What we're not doing is we are not creating a long range plan, but we are making sure that things that we are important, that we feel are important elements in a long range plan are recognized, articulated and, and there is recommendations for D O T as they go through their chief planning processes. So we're just again, trying to find a way where we can do our job with making the recommendations and go from there. We had the short term plan that we were presented maybe two months ago, month and a half ago on the agenda after that. But that has been removed as Catherine is not gonna be here for this meeting. However, if we have some time left at the end I've asked Denali if she would kind of go around the room and ask folks if there's items on that plan, which, which hopefully that you really become more familiar with their draft shortterm plan that you feel need more clarification or or justification for an order for you as a board member to move forward with that.
That's what shell want to know there. So we can make sure that A D o t no it was where there may be lapses of information or clarity on some of these items and then at our next meeting we would be able to take that up would be my intention. That short term plan. So in order to do that, we're just gonna go ahead and we can go through report of the members. Some members might have some meetings, et cetera to information to report there. And then we'll go to the general public comments. If there are anybody who wants to speak to the board before we have our meeting, we would take those calls, take those comments, and then at that point I would ask for a motion to move into work session again in the work session, make sure your phones are off, that they're not gonna ring during the meeting.
Speak really loudly and clearly so the folks can, can understand what it is that we're saying. Try not to step on each other, you know, basic roles of courtesy. If someone else is talking, wait till they're finished and kind of motion that you wanna talk. You don't have to wait for me to acknowledge that. Just, just, just make sure folks know that there's somebody else who wants to make a point and, and, and stick to the strategy that Denali's gonna bring for us. Cuz it's pretty straightforward and, and I think that's where we really need to be at this meeting. And if we start to get into the weeds to something that may be long and short, the short term plan are always talked about it enough. It's something that looks like we all agree on. Denali's gonna call us to task on that and make sure that we continue to keep moving so we have a, you know, a meeting where we walk out of here feeling okay, I was heard, you know, the information's there, it's clear and we've got a good starting starting place.
So having said all that, I would turn it over to the board members for any board member comments. And while we're still in the regular meeting book lesson I my once we're done with the work session, if there's anything that looks like the board wants to take formal action on and emotion one Adam will ask us to go back into a regular session. We'll need a second. And in that regular session, a motion can be brought to the floor for consideration by the board. Doesn't mean you have to have something you want for formal action at the end of the work session, but if you do, that's how we're gonna have. Okay. Having said that, I'll turn it over to board members. Mr. Osterman. Oh
Any clarification about at the doc? We haven't gotten a response. I know we've process the, and they, I've never seen the response from the department. Okay. Not have we done a formal response or just talked? I, we've done formal Greg's thought probably answered that last meeting. Greg said he'd responded. Oh, we'll talk to,
I guess what I would just say to set the tone is you're a new board, you know, you've only been around for less than a year and give yourselves a break. All right? I mean, I worked with boards that have been around for 20 years and they're still struggling with some of the stuff that, that I'm hearing that you all are, are struggling with. So I know that there's a lot of appetite for action and that's the number one thing that I hope we accomplished today. Whatever that looks like for you, that's my hope. I know that's what you all want. So let's do that together. But I also just like, it's okay. All right. I know you're not where you wanna be and I just encourage you to give yourselves permission for that to, to be okay and let's just move forward. All right, so I guess what I'd like to do, I know we just did the board introductions and reports, but I, I'd like to hear from board members a little bit more of an introduction.
We're in person, I know we've got Norm online, but if, if, if I, I'd really, it's always good to just start with the why. Like why are, why are you here? And so I'd like to do a round table with board members. I'm gonna take my green sour apple marker and you guys are gonna get markers later and I'm just gonna ask everyone to share, introduce yourself a little bit more on the personal level. Like what's your background? I know you know each other, I know you've been working together last, the last year, but, but let's just share more on a personal level. Like what's our, what's our general background? What brought us to this board? Why are you here? And I'm gonna start with Shirley. What's your why Shirley? My why I have so many wis Yeah know. I love this Paige crazy and Norma, you can't hear Denali well, she let us, let us know and we'll, we'll move some speakers.
So I spent little over 40 years in a community served by the Alaska Lane Highway system. It's, it was bimonthly, then monthly, then bimonthly, then monthly. And it's, you know, it's shifted and changed a lot for, for a lot of reasons. So it's, so the ferry system has always been something that I've been very familiar with and communities I'm familiar with, the communities that are dependent and very odd different ways. And I come from the maritime background, so I'm, I'm just fascinated and you know, when I can be on the water, that's, that's, that's my good place. I also came out of local government spending 10 years as a city council member at the city of on Alaska and then 13 years as mayor in UN Alaska. And got very familiar with the process of how slow and how long it takes to make decisions, particularly good decisions that don't have unseen negative consequences.
And that was really difficult for me because, you know, I'm a get things done, keep us like that too. And it's very hard to, to realize that in order to get things done, you've gotta back off and slow down a little. So the reason I wanted to serve on this board, and I really didn't have to think of it too much when representative disputes called and asked was that I, I really, I believe in this system. I believe in it from, from its inception and so many changes along the way that have, have shifted through management decisions, through legislative decisions, through funding decisions, through administrative decisions. And, and it, it just seems like it's, it's, it's just kind of become so over tentacled. I really wanted to, I enjoy going in and starting to figure out where the tentacles can go and making sure that you're looking several steps down the road to make sure that it's a fairly good decision and that, you know, that requires time and thought and critical, critical thinking.
So that one I think is really interesting because there's actually a seat for a sitting house member and tenant member. They're actually literally going to the meeting. It's an advisory board, The staff of that committee, it works for a last energy authority. They go through, they get all these applications, they put together a package at a summary level and that package is then brought to the committee and they deliberate, they ask questions, you know, but at the end of the day they vote on a package that is recommended that then is subject to legislative that's been going on. I think I just saw an rfp like they're in round, I don't even know they're in the double digits at this point. Maybe others are more involved in that. So the Alaska Citizen Review panel and full disclosure, that's a contract that my team actually has had for the last five years. It is a group that by federal law has one of these and they provide evaluation of the Office of Children's Services.
Our contract is with the, with the Office of Children's Services. And so you've kind of got this dynamic where, you know, you've got the department that's very much, you know, involved in its own evaluation function, right? And there's tension there. So that that group, you know, it's been around for decades. We've been involved for the last five years. When we first started, the board chair asked the department to actually promulgate regulations to give them some clarity on their authorities around like board positions, that sort of thing. And then like a couple governors later, the department finally got around to it and then the board was at that time had all turned over and they're like, why are you trying to regulate it? So there was this whole interesting, you know, the page of all this is interesting. But you know, that's something that I've seen help clarify board roles and responsibilities.
If there are questions, you know, you get a statute that, you know, theoretically way up here. But you know, it's one thing in theory when you pass a law that creates a board. But when you get into practice and it's like whoa, that was what we thought it was gonna be. And that just happens, right? I put AVADA and the mental health board on here just cuz I was actually with them earlier this week and I've, I've been trying to switch gears from saying avada to am ho. So if I actually say Avada, I totally know who you are. I just have been in alphabet suit this week. They, they brought me on board to help. They're in advisory boards actually at, I wouldn't say a dubal, they're two boards that are, they have mirroring bylaws. It's actually kind of cool to say all they got together and they decided hey we're gonna, you know, work together.
But that was a board that had some folks, when they initially had me come last year, they had some people that are doing the nonprofit board thing and we, that was kind of part of that conversation. I was a lobbyist for the massage therapist about seven years ago. They wanted to self regulate. That is a board that is making decisions about licensing and that was a big shift for them. They have authority that is not an advisory board. There's a lot going on there. There's a lot of different types of responsibilities. But I would also just point out, ooh, it sure was fun when we're getting the bill passed and all of a sudden everybody was like, what? Now we gotta pay fees. So, you know, it's like once you start implementing these things, you know, you start to learn that, oh that wasn't what we thought it was gonna be.
I'm just trying to kind of, this is normal stay wide independent living council. They're the guys that started their own nonprofit. I think they just realized they needed a way to raise money and they needed to learn how to be a nonprofit. They knew how to be a public force. And I threw this one up here cuz I love that this is brand new. I don't know if you guys are watching broadband. I didn't mean to watch it, but I, I ended up watching it and then I got sucked in kind of at the end of session last year. That's a new advisory board for, you know, that's gonna be making recommendations about a ton of money. It's pretty exciting. But what intrigued me about this one and the reason I drew this up here was that, that there was, I don't know what I was watching, it was not this, but it was on the agenda the same day and then it just ended up, I was watching it and there was this whole debate about technical is, is this a technical board versus a public board or a policy board rather.
Well me, when I read these B 63, I, there's no doubt in my mind what it says. And it says that we will consult and recommend to the department. The department will write plans put out about it. We're not here to write the plan. We're not here to spend all the time writing the plan prepared to recommend and, and give our right advice on when they write the plan, look at it, submit it to us, look at it, then I can go forward whatever they decide. Cause all we're doing is recommending. But I think that, that the department has realized that this recommendation and the fact that it's legislation, that they're gonna spend a lot more extra time trying to make sure that we are involved and we are doing what we're supposed to be doing. And they're, they're getting to the right plan. I don't,
I guess I just, so I I don't shorter, I I'm not, I'm, to me it's pretty clear to me that we are there to recommend and and also when you get into writing the corrected action discussion, it says we may Yeah. Yeah. And it's very clear, the only confusion part there is in that same section is we shall submit an electronic report. And so for, and that's the confus, the only confusing part is kind of a reporter we submitting under just that subsection or on the overall work that we're doing. And that gets into the areas of how much overall things we can do with legislature to governor, etcetera. So again, that's the only, you know, have better clarity there. I think we able to move forward a lot easier.
Well put others clearly. Thank you for me getting back to the shelves of the board duties and there, there is quite the list there and no, we're not all gonna magically become, you know, experienced experts in, in each of these fields. So in providing advice and recommendations, we need information from, in my my perspective, my opinion, we need it directly from the folks at kco. We need to hear directly from them what their plans are justifications for options that they're putting on the table before they, as they go through the A D O T lens. Cuz that's a missing part for us to, when I'm getting information on these items. So we get something in a board meeting. I, I don't know where it came from. I don't know who's put it together and what kind of background they have, but I do know there's no name on there from kco, from the folks who are doing the work and have been doing work and have been looking at planning for decades.
So for us to be able to do our shelves providing advice and recommendations, we, we just need that connection. We need, if we ask a question that has to do with the business end of amhs, we need to get, so Matt from Matt McLaren, if we're asking something on the engineering side, we need to get it from Cisco. Now it can go through A D O T and then we can get whatever ADTs or Catherine as the change directors, what her perspective is on this. But we, we, we have to see them both. This is really gonna throw us, and I think it has been throwing us because we've been all trying to get in there and figure out, well what do we do with maintenance? Well how do we do this? How do we do that? Well, we're not supposed to, but we need that, we need that deeper connection or we need that connection with the folks who are doing it.
And I, and I understand that might be a little uncomfortable because a DOT's vision or view of an issue might be a little bit different from the folks at kco. And the idea is not, certainly not to pit, but to make sure that as board members, that we really understand the decisions, the options that are on the table, decisions that are being made and, and the justifications for it. Nine times out of 10, when, when you see that and understand that process has been gone through and you're, you can see that it has, it takes the stress level way down for board members. Cause they still might not say, Well I'm not sure that's the best idea, but I definitely understand how they got to it now and I know who is actually looking at it and you know, and what kind of options and justifications that they were working on.
Thank you. Well good morning everybody. I'm Joan Schmid. I arrived in and in Alaska involved in coastal planning, state land management working with coastal districts and the coastal management program permitting rights of away and then most recently for the past 11 DT for about nine years now, heavily involved in port and hardwares. I've worked with many, many communities across the state and getting actual projects done, getting themselves, getting the money, getting them built from, met with Kala up to, you know, the, the most recent community that reached out to me for funding and guidance was quite so heavily involved to me, heavily involved with the tribe. Just spent many, many years also as a consultant working with tribal transportation program, the state of Alaska as an employee for starting my 18th year. I came to D O T actually as a behavioral health provider in the village.
I worked in behavioral health for 10 years and I was running the behavioral health clinic in Huna in early two thousands. And it really occurred to me with so much clarity, not only just my own experience as an Alaska resident utilizing the theory system my entire life, but you know, really so much of a community's resiliency and sustainability and and disability to live really hinged on transportation. And so I left my position in behavioral health and got my master's degree, my MPA from uas and went back to the state and found my way to plan. So what what you are doing here today is monumental for the states. I've been watching for several years as a planner in D O T until recently I was a multimodal surface planner. I work on ports and hardware's, aviation and surface. And so when we look at our work here today on, you know, the marine highway system, always remember that it's also about connectivity. It's not how we move our people in the marine transportation system. But once they get off that ship, where are they gonna go? And there one dot continue work with you.
So how does that place in the organization then, Rob for that? How does she trickle down and of the hierarchy? Well, historically she's been under program development planning. We're trying to bring, bring planner planning to higher level. So she's probably gonna be in the commissioner's office with, with Catherine doing it planning that way. Cause you know, that's, we're bringing, I mean one thing chief said, one D OT brain highway system is d OT to us. It's another mode of transportation if know a lot of people don't really see it that way, but that's how we see it. And we have many divisions, you know, we have airports, international airports, we have the marine highway system, we have planning development, you know, it's just the big broad agency and it all connects. And that's one of the benefits of keeping Marine highway in OT is it's all connected and it's one big network.
And you know, the original intent, our, our structure was Katherine as a liaison to the board was completely, it wasn't to filter anything, it was contact point of contact someone to be full-time dedicated to the board, right? That was the intent. And it still is, I don't feel we're denying access to any of our staff. Matt, be free to call em anytime you want free to call Fow, be free to call em wherever you want. They do work for D ot, it's not, they don't work, they work for them in highway, but they also work for D ot. That's, that is what, and we're proud of that. So,
Sure. Just, I just wanna make sure that it's placed in our sequencing here in the right order and we kind of knew that people were gonna wanna get into some of the short term stuff and I've got a place to make a list for that. I'm happy to entertain this at this moment if people think that's a good use of our time. But I also wanna keep us forward. I wanna honor that. But
I can bring up later, I'd love to answer it. It's more's more of a, how the board communicates and how UT communicates. And so we had decision, we had a draft plan for winter, which included Columbia and she was gonna run and it was a draft, it was for public comment and there was a lot. And also talking with staff and engineering there became this, this is a very risky adventure going on. And we provide, here's another proposal we have for you, the engineering people, the, you know, the carry, the scheduler, Matt, It's like here's a different plan. And we looked at it went, you're right, A safer plan, less risky. So we put out public information, here's our new, our new idea. And so I can't help at a point in time, particular point in time, things change. We, we try to communicate very clearly. It's one of the things we're really focusing on at dot right now is external and internal communications. And then we're failing a little bit. It's a big challenge, but let's, you know, we'll try to make sure we're being really clear when we pivot like that. Again, that's part of the process is to make sure the agency's working, communicating properly.
Consultants? No, I think things will be wrapped up a little bit more quickly now that I'm available site support. But I would like to address Captain Hill's question, comment and, and just provide a little bit more information just basically in planning, this is how we do it. When we're working on a project, we typically have a developed, published, distributed communications plan that follows and known like timeline, process and steps and a public involvement plan. So I would imagine that it, you know, it didn't take a day to get, you know, more than a day to change things as it relates to communication such that they're effective, clear, concise, getting the information you need in time to make the appropriate decisions. So I would have to inquire as to what communications plan might even be in place right now. But the way that that I have worked with my teams in the past, we and consultants in particular kind of long, lengthy, even maybe almost tmi, but the communications plan is very, very clear. Who talks to who, when, why, and how. So that's certainly something that we can take back. Well
What kind of, what other options did you look at and, and then the reason I ask this is because this board is looking at to, you know, revitalizing the fleet with vessels that are gonna replace them at Nuca and the Columbia and eventually down the road Kennecott and you know, the t the test replacement vessel is so behind schedule already, was there discussion that maybe this is just too much to try to pack into a vessel that needs to be out there as soon as possible and all of these new, these ideas and options and working with the Coast Guard and working with ABS and seeing what you're gonna have to do, how it's gonna work, what it's gonna cost might be better served in some of our, you know, in the Matt Nka replacement, which is I think gonna be our next, the next vessel for replacement. What, what made the decision to try and, and get all this, all these unknowns into the test mean instead of putting it outta here when we have answers? I'm, I'm a little concerned about that.
So as I understand the driving force behind getting these technologies in the vessel is yes, the test mean is not on the schedule. I think everybody wanted it to be on, you know, obviously we don't have a contractor board yet, but the changes we've made to date have not drastically pushed the bar to the right for delivery of the vessel. We're still looking at a a 2027 enter service date. So we really haven't changed that because we, with cmgc, we have so much flexibility with that design period, right? So as we're working through batteries, as we're working through changing our procurement methodology, we can still have design happening with Glosson and then we just, we have a more mature package to work with our contractors on. So there has been some slide, of course you can't take as much time as we have to make sure we have a good procurement process and you can't stop critical design efforts on propulsion to work on battery integration without some impact.
But it's not a one for one change in the case of the TRV because of the cmtc concept. So we're still looking as, as I said, 2027 for delivery and ready for service. We're looking at very early 2027 for deliveries at the state of Alaska. And then of course the state of Alaska needs to have time to prep the vessel for service. So that would get us out in sometime in spring according to initial estimates. And as far as funding goes, I think that was part of your, your question Shirley. You know, again, with with the infrastructure funding that's available to the state, much of that is very much centered around efficiency and modern technologies and it behooves us to try to make use of that. You know, if we cannot, for some reason funding doesn't come through, it is not a drastic step to remove the battery from the vessel and just say, you know, we don't have funding, we're just not gonna do that part of it.
I mean we can make that decision, you know, even two, three months from now and back and back go backwards. But if we weren't prepared and we did get the funding, it would've been a major problem to try to go forwards. I hope that makes sense. And everything we're doing now, even if we can't install it on the trv, which I really hope we can, is knowledge and lessons learned for when we do get a chance to put it in, say it's the MRV or a future vessel, the state of Alaska is learning a lot about integration, our consultants are learning a lot about it, what we're doing through a lot of this efforts with Coast Guard and ABS and that's all things that are gonna benefit the state in the long run.
Okay. We'll be kind of full speed ahead. Okay. And that's okay. So thank you for being here as much as you can. So the PowerPoint has a slide and those of you that are board members have in front of you a document that is this spreadsheet and it's got y'all names on it. This is a spreadsheet that we use for board. Usually they're handling their own recruitment in your case, it's my understanding you have quite an interesting appointment process for those and it's actually outlined somewhat in statute. And so one of the charges that I believe is included as a section of the short term plan is that a board competency review he conducted. So what I wanted to do, and I, I was asked to do this at least, I just already had this tool, so I plugged all your names in and I plugged all what I interpreted to be the competencies up top.
There's a lot. I had to actually get somebody to help me make it fit on one page. So our thought is that we would go ahead and let board members self select. That's usually how we do this. You know, let folks tell us what, what can just check the box next to your name and if I get more than one deputy commissioner, that'll be interesting. So hopefully this is pretty straightforward. You have the mouse, let's look at the next slide. You can't really see it up on the screen. So I listed the competencies on this next slide just so we can kind of, there's a lot going on here and I also kind of wonder if everybody has the same interpretation of what, what these things need. And so we've got enterprise architecture, business operations, financial management, risk management, logistics, supply chain management, engineering, project management and controls, marine operations strategy.
I hope everybody picks that one. Regulatory compliance, ship maintenance, construction repair, quality management, continuous improvement, sales and marketing, communication, customer interface, experience management. And I don't know what that is. Yeah, I don't either. Yeah, those are the words. I possible that we had a typo when I pulled it from the statute, but this is, is it customer experience man? Yeah, this is what I interpreted customer. Oh yeah. Well I've got the statute. Where is that? Anyway, I I think it would be, you've got a little bit of time if, if you all wanted to talk about any of this, you know, I think you have the space to do it. Can I, can I say something quickly? Please. You know, I, again, I, I'm probably bringing in some of the discussion that happened during the Reshaping Working group, but I mean, again, and this is not this board's mandate, but we were looking at what's the right governance structure for the system.
And so we looked at things like, should it be a line agency, should it be an enterprise corporation? Should it be some sort of hybrid? And in that process, in terms of recommending a a board, the the thought process was that it, a board should be something akin to the railroad board that brings in a level of, of expertise. And, and as I've I, as I said to speaker students and other people, I really don't feel qualified to be on this board. And it's because of, I'm thinking that we're trying to create a governing board that has the, the something akin to that railroad board where it's going to be board people on long term who bringing business expertise, business operations experience other things that I just don't feel i, I bring to the table. And I certainly don't bring maritime experience to the table. Cause I told the Rob outside, I can pull a rip cord on an outboard, but that's about the most I can do in terms of maritime experience. So, so I, I guess what I wanted to say about all of that is that being an advisory group, I, I'm trying to adjust my thinking in, in a different, as that we're an advisory group and not that sort of corporate type board that, that I think, you know, Cynthia and maybe others around the table have experience with.
Question. Again, if I can, I I, I agree with Captain Hiller. Once all this information is in, we can have that discussion at our next meeting and I think, you know, to look at it and, and you know, have, is it project management that we're lacking? Is it strategy training that we're lacking or is it the ever nebulous experience management? And, and again, I do not believe this is not, this is not an exercise for the board to do anything other but self-regulate
Me. Just who am I, what, what do I think is on here? And if somebody wants to call me on one of my access that where that experience is, that's fine. That's why I say, you know, just, we just have to be, you know, just be really straightforward on it. It's not something that you're familiar with or you like something that you actually have experience and background in. And then at the next meeting just, just to look at it, I think it'd be interesting, but it's out of our hands, it's a legislate, they wanna see where we're missing or lacking. They wanna see it as part of the short term plan, like deputy commissioner said. So it's just our job too.
I, it's short term plan. Describe how effective and efficient progress toward priorities and goals defined in the comprehensive long range plan will be at obtain, including recommendations for state opportu, operating capital budgets, and a description of skill or competency gaps in the membership of Emma.
I, I I think in, in that was my comment earlier about, I thought we were here today, Josh discussed long race planning. Yeah. So we've morphed into a morning of, of different things to get there in the afternoon. But it, it would be nice in long range plan to have some time, hopefully we can get into the short term with it and describe what our next two or three meetings are gonna be and what we're gonna work on and how we're gonna facilitate those. And just, we're also talking about missing information and I think that's because we're not like, we're like, we're meeting today and it's like, what, what is our next meeting gonna be done? We don't even know. We haven't talked about it. So
I could we'll see where and and honestly keep, I mean it's always been on the agenda that we would start that long term discussion right after lunch and you know, it's, and it's always very hard to tell how much time a discussion on one or two items that we had send because we do have questions and you know, we, it does happen meeting in a long time. So I but we're gonna spend a lot of time though rest of the a on that Exactly what you're
I'm not here to, not here to decipher or to tell last Marine Highways or D o t what's their mission statement If I'm prepared to decide what I need to do and want to do for this board and what this board's job is. So this statement that can be is not my, this board's mission statement. I think that our mission statement needs to be, you know, it comes from the description that we have on our, on our operating page.
So are you talking the definition statement for the AM hub or the Alaska Marine Highway? For us? For US am we're just talking about Marine Highway. So that's a different conversation if we're all fine with leaving this as is, as it's been for a very long time and has been added to by the MTA in the past through lots of community outreach and discussion. You know, it's just a simple statement of what amhs what it's important some value is to state. But if you wanna talk about an am ho mission statement, that's, that's something I had never thought of.
And can be very much shorter and succeed and provide vision and the recommendation more. But I like the point of, and we tried that thought early on, we wanted to have some board governing values, board mention would be great, you know, just something that the, there was doing covering values. I don't really know how to develop those. But we had some suggestions I think in one of our first presentations. A pretty neat, but that's sort of like two different topics here. So yeah, we have the house bill and we have, but I don't think it'd be too terribly difficult. Not maybe this meeting to put something down in another meeting. The plan on long range planning for this meeting. But this is definitely something that we should talk about in maybe the next meeting. We should put together wherever that page is to least the,
Yeah, yeah, we can, yeah. The mission, you know, I mean we can, we can, we can develop something like this just between ourselves so we have something to refer back to when we get a little bit distracted enough up point of what our job is from House Bill 63 and that we were talking about is coming to a cohesive agreement on what we're supposed to be doing here. That's, we started the, you started the meeting that way that we need to, to kind of go back and redefine our roles as am I or not redefine our roles but keep inside of our roles. Our roles. Yeah, yeah.
Understand our roles. Yeah. Responsibility. So when we, when we talked earlier, we were talking about what was specifically in the statute and how the short and long term plan would unfold and the roles of the department roles with your body. Correct. And we, I think we're in agreement that you all were interested in and perhaps even charged with providing recommendations on the planning process that are in the d o T court. And so that gets to long range planning, but I think this is a really healthy conversation. You're a new board and it kind of gets back to what we were talking about earlier around just sort of having some, some operating guidelines. And so if I, I think most boards that I work with do have their own strategic plan, even if it's at a very high level. But I, I think that's not part of the statute. So, you know, that's certainly something that you as a board could consider doing and could be helpful and informative the process.
Think that we mentioned this morning that there was some interpretation about how we're reading how still 63 correct. And what we're supposed to be doing, right? So I think that's one thing as a board that we should just say based on house bill 63, this is what we're doing and this is how we interpret it. This is our basic principle. So we have something to move forward from, you know, why we plan a short term plan. However, nitty gritty we get just having a basic eye outline that we can go back to at every, you know, every meeting going a minute, this is what we said we were gonna do.
And I can take that information and put it into a framework for a plan that looks like every other plan that really follows the model. So what you tell me today about what your mission is, what your problem statements are, what your, your goals are, your priorities and your strategies. You know, we do really incorporate heavy public involvements into our plans always. But the work you do here today will just, you know, follow a template. Well, I have good news
Off my fall off. Then we're gonna organize it and I think what's gonna happen is you're gonna see a lot of different things like what we've already heard today and it's gonna start to take shape and then we'll start, we'll kind of go, okay, well this is where it belongs. So I, I'm pretty confident that's what's gonna happen. So, so thanks for I, I'm really excited about all the energy and appetite to roll your sleeves up cuz that's what we're about to do. So can I just read something I, I hope you guys feel, don't feel like you can't do this because I know you can and I'm here to help and I got the, someone was here for a presentation before you guys maybe a year ago, and this was a slide he presented to you guys and I love his words. The essential task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths and there's so many strengths here in ways that make a systems of weaknesses irrelevant.
Encouraged. Thanks Joanne. Yeah, this is amazing group and you've put a lot of effort into the last year for a new board. Like I I told you earlier, I've, I've working with boards that have been around for 20 years that haven't done as much as you've done in the last year. So you're doing great. I think we're gonna make some pretty good progress this afternoon.
Oh, okay, great. Yeah, I'm glad to be there. I'm here but I can report in the last two days we had over 13 and a half inches of rain. It's all I can bend over since Tuesday, so it worked out. I would've never made it there anyway, so, And tomorrow we're gonna start with a heavy rains again, so I probably wouldn't have made it back. But anyway, I, no, as far as the, I'm ready to discuss that long range plan. Thank you Paul for your excellent report. I've read it at least twice. That's all I've got. Thank you.
Okay, thank you Norm, next time we talk to you you're probably gonna be quacking like a duck. Okay. Anyone else? Let's see who else maybe Ed page is not able to be on. He's at Coast Guard Academy this week, which is pretty neat cuz my nephew's there too. Alright, hearing none. And with Juan out of his a would you like to make a motion to move into a work session? Yes, we move into a work session. Oh, go ahead. No, I forgot public comments. I forgot to ask if anybody's on the line. I'm not sure they are. I'm my, have
Three callers on the line. Okay. If anyone who's on the line would like to participate in public comment, hit star three to raise your hand and we'll unmute you. We'll give it just a minute. I don't see anyone raising their hands, so I think we're probably good to move on.
Okay. We can, we can come back and give that I try again just before or after our break for lunch. Okay. In that case would entertain a motion. Madam chair, I move that we move into work session for the Yeah, the i the items under new business. And then we do have time to come back for general public comment later in the afternoon. So anybody online could join us at three 15 for that second, that motion. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Hearing no opposition. We will consider the motion carries and we are out of our regular meeting and into our less formal work session. So Denali. Hi.
Good morning. Morning. Well here we are in person in the flesh. This is something, well I've met most of you I think, but if there's anyone I haven't met, my name's Denali, Daniels Kim on my team and I will be with you for the day. We're your facilitators and we're gonna be doing some work up on the wall behind me and it should be good fun. I've been facilitating for over 10 years. I have a little consulting business, seven folks on my team. I've worked with a lot of boards, a lot of state boards, a lot of nonprofits, and even some for profit boards. We also do strategic planning, but I'm hired as your facilitator to get y'all through this process today. I'm from the Kenai Peninsula, born and raised down there. I've been in Anchorage for over 20 years. Graduated from University of Alaska Anchorage and before starting my facilitation company I spent 10 years at the Denali Commission.
But I can tell you 20 stories where that has not happened over the last 40 years. So to me that is the thing that this board should be looking at and saying, you know, I don't know, I don't know all the, the organizational details at D O T anymore, but you know, docs used to be in the bridge section, maybe it still is. And that was a different operational unit within D O t and is are there reasons why those things didn't align? Probably a didn't, didn't appropriate the money in time or, or something got v code or whatever it is. But the legislature has to, to understand the level of coordination and planning and the consequences of their decisions as do governors. And and to me that's the level of advice that we have to be providing that says you guys are within, by starving the system of resources, by delaying resources, by, by overlaying a certain set of expectations.
You know, let me, let me, I don't wanna go into Alaska class vessels, but I can tell you way too many legislatures and governors have their fingerprints on the problems that they lack class vessels and, and they have to own that. We have to be able to say those are the things that lead us to this point where those Alaska class vessels came out of the shipyard and were not functionally operational within this system. You as a, if, if this was a private marine line and you had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and let them sit follow for years, the, the board would be fired, the management would be fired and we, you know, everybody would be sitting around looking at the casualties. But that doesn't happen because there's no cost of capital and because the political system moves on. And so what we have to do is find a set of recommendations that says this is how operating as a line agency or a quasi line agency, the marine highway can be insulated from the, these influences that are leading to suboptimal operation of the system. And I don't wanna talk about the widgets, The widgets ultimately are the issues, but these other macro issues are the things that make the system not work. So I'm, I'm hopeful that this can be sort of part of what we unpack with our afternoon workshop. Cause I, I think these are things that I'm hearing from others. So I'm, I'm gonna pivot us to wrap up and get into it. No, Okay, just checking thought.
So I, I've got a, a slide, there's, there's this full training that could take an entire day if, if people wanted it. I've done before it wasn't my plan, but I just wanted to kind of touch on a few things. And this is directly related to the conversation that you were having, you know, some of the pinch points, you know, there are tools to sort this stuff out, you know, when we talk and so the, these I, we've got this tool kit that we do with board training and sometimes people just pick one, but just kind of real briefly, you know, under governance, you know, you've got your statute that there are ways that you can define your rules of engagement. As an nc it's not gonna happen overnight. I, I'm working with the group that's taken two years on policies and procedures like, you know, I, I don't want you to like make a big laundry list and feel bad about not getting stuff done, but you do have ways to sort some of this out.
So governance I would say, you know, bylaws, policies and procedures, you know, whatever you decide may, maybe you've got some internal operating guidelines, you know, having a clear calendar maybe kind of building on what Cynthia had just asked, like what's our timeline, what do we do each year, when does it happen? What can we control? What can't we control? You know, getting into you're a new board, you haven't figured this stuff out, you know, so some of the board operations I think tie into annual work cycles when you have long range plans, you know, having an annual work plan cycle, you know, and, and I'm talking about internal, so like you as a board, what are the things you do internally? And then that sort of ties into this board support question. And when I see that big one list and when we start, I heard what Shirley said about you know, staff time and adding committees and like do we just have kind of this blank check with support from D O T to support all the things.
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