February 11, 2022 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
This is not MTAB. I hope it's not MTAB. It needs to be a very different structured board and we really need to come at it from, you know, the business side, as well as a public service side. And it's gonna be a real balance. It always has been. And, and I also hope we realize we're going to need to look at short term plans, midterm plans, and long term plans or strategies to really get there. I think some items should be a bit of a foot base, including the funding that we find ourselves with the infrastructure bill, you know, just this amazing amount of funding to the infrastructure bill to really capitalize on that quickly as possible, and to really kind of take a long look in terms of governance and look at what has worked in the past and what hasn't worked in the past and stop making the same mistakes.
And I think that's really important and it's gonna be, I think it's gonna be a little difficult, frankly, but I, I also feel like I, I really feel like this might be one of our last best chances to really address a system that is 40 years in the past. And we, and we have to bring it up and we've, you know, public has told us, they believe in this system, many members of the public, the employees have told us, they believe in this system, the legislature has told us they believe in this system. So, you know, it's a really big responsibility and I really did hesitate before I took this role to actually step in and try and come up with recommendations, with working in tandem, with KCO and DOT that are operationally realistic. A lot of times plans sound great, but they're just not realistic.
They're just not gonna work, to make sure that we're not doing that, to make sure that we're listening to the folks who've had boots on the deck for years and the engineers, and to really strengthen what AMHS organizational whole function is to be. And, and we can do that, but it's definitely gonna take, you know. I think we're gonna have to wipe the blood off our nose and get back in the ring a couple times and I expect that, and that's okay. Because I think it's that important and necessary. So I really appreciate being here. Thank you for staff getting this all set up and working with us. I look forward to, you know, obviously this is a kickoff. We're not gonna be doing anything transitional at this meeting, but kind of getting an idea of where, where we all think we need to go. And, you know, hopefully short term and midterm as we start looking on the long term, start to come to grips with that in the next couple of meetings, at least I think we can, I think all the information there, we just have to pull the trigger.
Great. Thank you. And is there anyone else on the line that would like to provide any other members I'd like to share? Comment? Make sure nothing. All right. And for the record, my name is Katherine Keith. I'm the Change Management Director for the Commissioner's Office here at DOT and I work with AMHS and we'll be serving as the liaison between the AMHOB board and AMHS and providing as much information as possible. And I'll be supporting this meeting moving forward. So you'll be hearing more from me.
Tera Ollila - I'm Tera Ollila, the Administrative Assistant for the commissioner's office, and I'm also administrative support for this board.
Katherine Keith - Well, thank you everybody for the opening remarks. And I'd just like to announce, I think we have all of our IT problems resolved, so it should be smooth sailing moving forward, we do have people that are listening in on the phone. So as we speak, we'll do our best to project our voice into the microphone here that that's in the center of the room. And for everyone that is listening on the phone our public comments, period again is at 1145. And at which point we'll talk procedures about how to participate in that. So thank you at this time, it'd be appropriate for the board to start this process of organization, following Robert's rules of order here, I'd like to open the floor up for nomination, for discussion,
If there is no other board member that has the interest in serving as the chair, I accept. Katherine Keith - Is there any other nominations for chair? Hearing none. We don't need to consider count, count the votes. So I guess for both, thank you. All those in favor of Shirley Marquardt in the position of chair. Say I, or raise hand.
Thank you. Madam chair, would you like to proceed with the nominations for vice chair? Shirley Marquardt - I will open the floor to a nomination for vice chair and I actually, I will wait. I will wait to see what the rest of the board would like to do for vice chair, if not, I would,
Thank you Wanetta. So terms, My understanding is that these are six year positions statute, and that they're going to be staggered. Do you all have an idea of how we wanna stagger those? Just drawing things out of a hat for years? Katherine Keith - Yes, if possible, I'd like to table this discussion for the return of Andy mills, who is just confirming with Courtney on the exact process there, we did expect that they were assigned, I believe when you were given your positions. And we just wanna confirm that if that's okay. Thank you.
Again. Understood. And I think what I would ask that you reply to them at a break time where it's using your cell phone. Because again, it just goes to the not getting outside information when you're supposed to be in a public meeting. Understood. Okay. Thank you. Information sharing. Katherine? Katherine Keith - Yes. Thank you. If I may just touch on the topic of ethics as this did come up, as we, we do wanna make sure that we're disclosing any potential conflicts. And so captain Hillard, you know, did prepare just a brief letter to submit about his current employment. We have reviewed his current employment with our legal and there's no conflict. And as we move forward, as it does become a discussion at that point, they could provide, I, I don't foresee it. I I'm glad to have you at the table have direct. Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. So information sharing, we do have our new website AMHOB that the members have access to. And for those of you online, I was asked to mention that Chrome is best watch, not Firefox with the Facebook site, a quick FYI there. So information sharing. This is my question to the members, what your preferred method of receiving information is, we've done a couple different things. We've uploaded information online and provided links to that. And then also sent things to email. And the information that we sent to you is publicly uploaded as well through that website. But process wise, is there a preferred method moving forward that you'd like us to adhere to? Shirley Marquardt - Can I call on Wanetta because you went through this type of information sharing with the reshaping board.
Sorry. Looking at the status report. Yeah. I just wanna say that I, I think that all these multiple channels are essential given this day and age, and I hope that the public will engage with us through the Facebook live. There's also a chat feature there that I know that of public has used during the reshaping working meetings. And I perhaps need a little bit more maybe for the group, the public involvement or public input.com channel. But I think all of these things are going to be an important aspect of getting public input and engagement in the conversation. And just again, would encourage that the more sharp minds and eyes on these issues to help the board in its work would be beneficial. So that what you were looking for Shirley?
Katherine is that what you were looking for with the platform? Katherine Keith -Yeah, that's helpful. It sounds like we can continue as we're moving forward with information. And if you, would like specific changes, you can recommend to us at that time. And I can comment on public engagement if this is an appropriate time. So with publicinput.com, this is a forum that DOT has used statewide for the last couple years. And it's a highly functional system that allows us to in engage with the public and unique ways. So for those across the state of Alaska, for example, Captain David Arzt, with the bandwidth issues right now, people can call in to the phone and provide public comments. They can leave a recorded message for a public comment at any point, and then we'll be a able to transcribe that and provide the comments back to the public and the board members.
They can text message into the, the phone and we have this information listed. So, and then it responds back to you as questionnaire on your phone, and you can provide your comment that way. In addition to the more regular online forms that are available. On the back end, once we want to start offering surveys, either internally here or externally to the public, we get back these dynamic reports, which help process some of this information for us. So it's survey monkey 2.0, in a sense. And so we can get a lot of information in, and make sure we're really listening to the public on areas you're especially wanting input. And I'm happy to share these reports. I sent a sample via email last week to give you an indication of what is possible. And then we can continue sharing that, especially after this meeting, as we go through all of the comments.
I'll ask that question to you. When would you like us to have the meeting minutes out? I will be responsive to what is requested. Shirley Marquardt - I guess it's, could it be one day? Could it be the next day? I don't know how this process works. I know that's it's not super fast. Katherine Keith - I would say if we considered three business days, it would be safe to have, make sure there's an internal review that of accuracy of information. And that could be posted publicly along with the, the video links.
Just a reminder that the minutes should be approved by the board before they are made public. And so at least if I, I think Katherine's suggestion of three working days following a meeting to be distributed to the board. I would encourage that we find a way to make them public prior to the next meeting, generally, that if that requires an electronic or telephonic vote, it requires all board members to cast a vote in the affirmative to make the minutes available to the public. So if as a operating standard or procedure 72 hours or three business days following a meeting to the board for approval, and then I would say, you know, two working days for the board to turn that around in a vote to make it available to the public.
I think that that's possible. What I would say is that it would, if procedurally, this makes sense, again, if it's distributed to the board, there's a telephonic or electronic vote to approve in concept and then ratify at the next full meeting so that they're not official official, but they can at least be made public. If that makes sense. And I'm not an expert in that process. So there may be some procedural guidance from the state or something in statute that dictates how that's done.
Well if three days work, that would be lovely, but if it doesn't, we will understand that. But as soon as you can then get them as Wanetta suggested to the board, and then we would have two days to review them on our own and just make sure that you would email back any edits or clarifications you might want back to Katherine. So that two days to really read them and give feedback before they go public.
I'd like to make a motion, can we just give us, give ourselves a two weeks, give us 10 business days to get the, the minutes drafted and then reviewed by us. I'm remote a lot of times on the boat, it might be hard for me to get 'em sometimes in a very timely fashion. So for that, I would think that two weeks, you know, 10 business days should be reasonable.
Is there a second to the motion? And then Does that make sense to you Katherine for your ability for minutes? Katherine Keith - Yeah, certainly. Yeah we can, we'll provide the minutes and then, work as best we can with Captain Hillard and others, to access the information and process in a timely matter. And sounds like we can make a commitment to the public of trying to get them out at 10 days and, and we'll try to do so for that summary. One second.
Hey, good morning, everybody. I I'm at home quarantined with the virus. Otherwise I'd be there with you all. I'm excited to be here. I thank you all. And I look forward to the discussion and working with you all as we work on all of these very important issues, I was born and raised in the village of old Harbor, a coastal community on Kodiak island and the Marine highway is near and dear to my heart. And I really look forward to rolling up with my sleeves and working with you with you all. Thank you,
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Wanetta Ayers. I presently work with a public policy forum out of Anchorage, Alaska focusing on critical issues for the state of Alaska. My previous and involvement with the ferry as I've been involved for many years in community and economic development for coastal communities ranging from prince William sound westward through the Aleutian. So have advocated for ferry service and continuing to serve those communities. I hope that in the last several years that the critical nature of ferry service has become more obvious to everyone in Alaska with the closure of borders, and with the reduction of service, and access to food and transportation, and critical care issues that people understand how critical the role is for the Alaska Marine highway for coastal communities. I previously have served on the Marine Transportation Advisory Board and also the Alaska Marine Highway Reshaping Working groups. So I look forward to continuing to work on these issues. My goal is to see a safe, stable and sustainable Marine highway for coastal communities and for the state of Alaska. So I look forward to working towards that goal.
Yep. So I'm calling in from Dutch Harbor right now, and unfortunately my bandwidth with is not enough for the zoom video, so I apologize for that. My experience is I'm a, a ship pilot Marine pilot in Western Alaska, which we cover the Kenai Peninsula, the Alaska peninsula, and the Aleutian island chain all the way up the west side of the state and up into the north as well. I have had firsthand experience with the ferry, but was riding it down the chain and also working on it for two and a half weeks while I was getting pilotage in this region. So I just know it's very important to all communities from all three regions in the state and even the, the communities that are smaller, I think still rely heavily on the link that it provides them. So I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, how we can, as I've heard, already create a long term plan that, you know, will last for the state and make it, you know, a more successful operation. And I know it's gonna take time and a lot of effort, the, I appreciate all the background information that was sent and there's lot to digest there. So I look forward to meeting everybody the next time and working with you. Thank you.
So next, there's a copy of ground rules that you all got in the packet. And it's just something to familiarize yourself with. I think particularly in terms of making sure that the public feels that the process is open. It's fair, transparent, pretty simple things as chair, everyone participates. If folks are being quiet, I like to go down the table and say, Mr. Oman, you're so quiet, do you have a question or need for clarification, if you say no, that's fine. But often I found that sometimes, you know, folks are just not quite sure of something, not sure if they wanna put their hand up. And it's really important that if you have any questions or need for clarification that you come forward, opinions are great, they're expected. We do need though to stay focused, and stay on track.
We have limited time. We have a lot to do. We've got staff time as well that we're using. So I would just ask that if it's not directly to the topic that we're discussing you might get a gentle reminder from the chair, please don't take it personally, but just realize it's just in the matter of time. Another one is side conversations, I don't see that happen too much here, but you know, phones, if you're on your phone texting during a meeting it leads the public to believe maybe you're getting inside information or having a discussion. Shouldn't be on your phones should leave it on, but leave it where it stays face down, please. Again, it's a public perception that is very important. Also just listen respectfully and thoughtfully when it comes to public input. Sometimes it's felt that maybe that it takes a little bit of time, a little bit of extra time, the Marine highway service provides public service. So when we invite the public to come to these meetings via whether it's zoom or in person and speak, we're gonna hold everyone to the time limit. But we just need to remember that they're here for a reason and just listen quietly. And, again, as Catherine has mentioned before, just try to really project your voice, speak clearly, make sure that people can understand you.
So Madam chair, I might be on my phone sometimes I wanna make that clear speaking to representative. There's five meetings that are represented. I can see any communication things I have here with my cell phone will be with business, getting input to them of how they would like me to proceed on this board. I'm also an active employee
Here on the bottom of the pages, website comment, publicinput.com AMHOB public. And that's an engagement page specifically for this. You can also go to the DOT&PF site and post it on the AMHOB website, which has a public engagement tab listed there as well. And when you click on the engage tab that sends you to this portal, so there are a couple of avenues for that.
Yeah. So for the general public you're on Facebook live watching the video and we have post captioning available as well. And at the public comment period, there'll be a phone number that people can call into. And then we can see them on the computer here that they'd like to speak. And then we can open up the mic for them to address the board during the public comment period. Prior to that though the phone lines are muted, so it's a more closed session in that way. So public will have the time at the public comment period, but I should say, please, you can you can leave a written comment, you can still provide a voicemail comment. So there are other ways if that time slot doesn't work for you for comment during the meeting.
Just to say that during the reshaping work group sessions, it was helpful to see public comment real time. And so with both publicinput.com and Facebook live with those channels being open, it is helpful to see public commentary during the course of the meetings. I mean, obviously we're not gonna be able to pay attention to those channels full time, but as breaks or other things allow as board members, we can review those comment and see what folks' reaction or feedback might be. I will just add to the public that while there may be history that people want to re-plow, if you will, that it's really more helpful to focus the comments on what are the positive options moving forward. And I think that feedback will be especially helpful for the board. So I appreciate that. Thank you.
And I guess the last question I have, are we going to be providing minutes, basically a discussion on the website reports? Katherine Keith - Yes. Thank you. That's another good point for discussion. So the entire meeting is being recorded, a video and transcribed, so we'll have full minutes available to us. And the question would be, you know, we, we will definitely, we track motions and actions and, and votes made and summary available of the discussion. And if there's things beyond that, that we'd like to include, we're happy to do so.
If I can, I think what we would be doing during that time is that we would each get the draft minutes, have a chance to read them through, make sure that they're clear that there are no mistakes or no additions needed, etc. And then sending back to Katherine that yes, the draft minutes can go before the public, but you're not going to formally improve them until your next whole meeting, but it's just a way to get, like I said, get it out to the public in its draft form so they can see what the discussion was and have time to respond to any of the board members before the next meeting with some concerns or clarifications they may have.
Yes. Thank you. Shirley. A couple of folks online are reminding me that with the Facebook live recording, this meeting will be accessible to the public immediately following the conclusion of the meeting. And so to some degree, the timeliness of this is perhaps moot. I would just say that I, I'm not exactly sure what constitutes the official public record, but just a reminder to the board that since we are using these multiple open channels, that the public will have opportunities to review our discussions and decisions in multiple ways.
Let's just go ahead then with the 10 days. Katherine. Katherine Keith - If it's appropriate, the next item will be to start getting into the roles and responsibilities. Okay. So we can start out by, I wanna start off by saying that our Legislative Liaison, special Assistant to the Commissioner, Andy Mills, will be here later to. So as we have specific questions that I can't answer, he'll be available to speak to that here shortly. He's just in another meeting. What I did want to focus on right now, some of the tasks that the members will be responsible for executing, including the short term plan, a comprehensive long term plan, recommendations on performance measures, and recommendations to the STIP.
One of the recommendations as for the statutes was that AMHOB will collaborate with DOT&PF and AMHS in the creation of a comprehensive long term plan. And the focus of this would be to develop towards the development improvement of AMHS. It needs to be updated every five years and think that it would include our priorities and goals. It also includes proposed strategic maintenance and our vessel replacement plans. And it would have wrapped up into that the performance measures, for example, efficiency, effectiveness, and output. Are there any questions on this at this time? Alan Austerman - Is there something already out there that we can review as far as long term plan?
I can answer that by saying, you know, do we currently have a long term comprehensive plan in this formatting? I would say, no, we have a lot of components of it that would consist of that, but it is now time to really compile it together in the format that this board is satisfied with. I should mention also that we are currently hiring for Marine Highway Planner full-time. And this planner once hired will be able to be dedicated to working on some of these items as well. We'll have a resource there.
I wanna just comment first that I'm encouraged to hear that planner as being brought on board. I think that's a critical role. And it's one that is, I think, essential for a complex system to keep it constantly moving forward. And with that, I just want to speak to perhaps a nuance to item two here, the update every five years, I, I believe the intention of the working group, and I hope it would be something that this board would adopt is that it's a rolling five year plan, it's not plan five years, wait, let it go out of timeliness and then plan again, or wait four years and try and come up with a new five year plan. The idea is to have a rolling five year plan where you always have your eye on what the long range goals are for the system. So I would hope that would be something that the board would look to and adopt. Thank you,
Yeah. Our board members are statutorily set, that said, the planner will work in our Program Development, statewide planning division, and will definitely be a resource to work with Catherine and the board for all long term planning. So that's a resource that we used to have, it got lost in the shuffle. So thanks.
And also to speak to what you talked about Alan AMHS does have long term plan for vessels and ideas they have for years. And they update and they are rolling changes, but they definitely have in house recapitalization plan for, for at least years in the last four years. And which I think makes it really important for us to hear directly from AMHS managers as we go through this process. I understand today, you know, there are just so many questions that could be asked that really could be focused on at a later day, but as we move forward we really need to be able to hear directly from them as much as possible. That has been a missing link for many, many years. And they're not coming into this brand new coming up with a good idea, what they think's a good idea. They've been working it and living it for decades and they know from their perspective, an operational perspective.
So I think that's a good idea. I would appreciate that. But I standing back here as saying, what is the overall picture? What is, you know, how you pull all this together? If you have a comprehensive plan, you don't have just this. I mean, there's gotta be overall. I appreciate the fact that there are components out there, but somehow we have to pull all that components together into a picture to work towards, whatever it's gonna be. Paul Johnsen - Alan, I think what you're you're asking is we need to be as board members, we need to have there's many pieces of the puzzle out there that we don't have yet. I kind of think of what we're looking at can make an informed decision. So it's, it's gonna be a job to find a way to bring all these previous reports and puzzles and plans and stuff to our attention.
And I did wanna mention for the board members that Captain Falvey is online and he'll be in the conversation all day. So please feel free to direct any questions to him as well. And on the topic of long term planning, as the chair mentioned, there are a lot of components of the plan, including a 20 year optimization plan, which AMHS management would like to see incorporated into a bigger, comprehensive, long term plan that's being requested by statute because having that all in one format is sort of the, the missing link right now. But I appreciate the point that there is a lot of planning that goes on to keep things working. And so it'll be fun to pull this together, be a good thing. But yes, Captain Falvey is available is, that with Matt McLaren, will he be monitoring and participating as he's available. So with that, we can move on. The next item is an annual short term plan. Let me see if I can move the video here.
And the short term plan will be updated annually, and it's supposed to capture how AMHS should be achieving its long term plan. So it gets a little bit are action oriented, you know, what needs to happen in order to achieve the goals and things outlined in our long term plans. So it identifies effective and efficient progress towards priorities and goals they'll have recommendations for our state operating and federal capital budget. And then also it needs to identify any description of skill or competency gaps within the board itself. So identifying what further resources may be needed. And those are things that should be called out in the annual short term plan.
After lunch, I can work with deputy commissioner to incorporate some more slides on the budget. And we have time at that for today. Did you say I have some slides already included about it, but it you'd like further have to be included, answer that question. So another item in the statute is that amhob will recommend performance measures. And I sent out some information just to give you a sense of some of the performance measures that AMHS has gathered in the past. There was a very extensive effort, then we will go into more depth later about, but I just wanna mention that we, we have a starting point and as you identify what the key performance goals are that you would like to focus on that that is something that we're being asked to do. This is a, a sample here online of, you know, an example of schedule changes and what the source of the change are. And I'd also like to mention just for the record that Andy Mills, our legislative liaison on here. So if we have questions pertaining to the origin or nature of this bill, it would be good to ask him.
Well, I originally raised my hand on the prior discussion, but I I'll speak to this one. The way this information is presented, I think is not as illustrative as it could be in, in this sense, we have a schedule and the goal would be that that, that scheduled service is delivered. And I think what this, this measurement is telling us is the number of changes to the schedule. But I, I think the macro measurement, which is the delivery on scheduled service. And so I, I would think that these numbers maybe could be reworked to tell, because I think it's just telling us what the canceled service is, as opposed to the delivery of scheduled service.
And, and so I would hope that we could get to those kinds of measurements to see the overall effectiveness of the system. I think this is a drill down measurement, which is the number of changes and the reasons why those changes occurred. And certainly, I, I think that we would want to see, you know, there's, there's uncontrollable elements here and controllable elements, and so that we would want to see over time as the, the system becomes more stable, that the, the percentage of, of control controllable changes declines. So for example, community requests, I mean, I think it's one of the, the charming aspects of the Alaska Marine highway is that it's been highly responsive to community requests, but ideally order for the system to be sustainable, that, that those community requests needs to be incorporated to a high degree in the scheduling. And I know that that's the case. I know what a yeoman's effort the scheduling staff staff make to, to be responsive. But again, just over time, I would want to see this a a as a percentage of scheduled service delivered successfully. And then for that portion that was not delivered, this is an explanation for what happened.
Yeah. Moving forward. I also mentioned in the statute that submit recommendations to D OT regarding preparation of this comment on that. I, I have one comment on the step for folks in local government, because it has a tendency to change. It shifts so quickly that you don't even know items that you thought were on the step for, you know, for funding all a sudden disappear because something comes up before it. So when image ask, submit recommend into, are they going to, are they going to be concrete or are they going to be subject to shift and changes like other, just, just been kind of a long running,
I guess I would say, I mean, the recommendations from this board are just that, right? The recommendations to department transportation. And we, of course, I'm on the board, I'm engaged the whole attend for me to be here and part of this process. So as, as far as the stiff, you're right, it's a very public, but challenging and dynamic process. And we're in the middle of Broadway. One of the most unique times that the infrastructure build that's come out and how AIP goes forward for peer as far as recommendations for the Marine highway system and what gets in the step in the long run. There's a lot of levers that sway what ends up in there. This will be one of them working with BR highway, what they actually need. But in theory, I mean the biggest challenge has been getting, you know, like the TRV, the tu replacement vessel, that was a big lift getting an actual vessel replaced, but there is continuous money instead for maintenance operate, not, not operations.
So vessels variable, discretionary pot that goes annually towards, towards vessel maintenance, along with state money, state appropriation for alcohols. So where it goes from here. I mean, I, I would think in the longer term planning from the board, as far as you mentioned, the plan that the Marine highway has had things like that, where you want to see the fleet go and how that fits into the step. I think that's the most important part, how, how, how it can step being fiscally constrained, which means there's only so much money you can program in a particular year, the federal highway, and this station requires that and how the Marine highway that's the replacement, continuous maintenance. What we have, how that fits in there is a challenge. And what be the
Replacement. Yeah. Again, I would assume that the step is the meeting that we're going to have, and you're going present what the current to go through it and look at how long these issues have been last week. How issues have been the step, we'll understand what in there, what we need to put in.
And I guess the question be what we have a lot of things we're looking at terminal changes to terminals for possible new ACS or TRBs we can ask broadly. So I guess that question would be, which of all these things we're gonna be talking about are gonna come up the infrastructure bill, which will go into the program, or if that funded by the, the large federal infrastructure bill, I guess kind of an outline of the different, different opportunities for AMHS projects or changes, what path are they gonna take? Why do we need to think about when we're thinking stem? What do we need to think about when we're thinking infrastructure
I have a question and maybe a little earlier, if task force is established by folks who are not members of the board, what exactly is their role? Do they have a DOT connection? Would they be meeting as, as group, as the task force D O T support, or just kind of collecting information on their own, providing it back to the court?
I understand it unless somebody else would like to jump in that they serve as an advisory capacity. Deviations from the plan policy or procedure that are outlined either in that short term or the long term plan, if AMHS is not meeting the objectives, as they've been outlined, the board may prepare a report recommending corrective action. This will be provided through the legislature and the governor's office and to the public, the chair of Andy mills was able to provide a breakdown of the state terms, which are already assigned based. And that's a summary review. Okay. I'll, I'll pass around the table, everyone. And I might keep one at and something on the dark. Yeah. It's posted on the, the board website. Yeah. Further a public listening in, we just handed the document that summarizes the length of term for each of the members. And that is available on the am. Ho website. When you click on the members, the link, you can see if that's something like further information on how long I'll be employed or
All the topics of purview listed in the statute for this board to review are listed here on the operation and maintenance ways to increase revenue, DEC costs, personnel, the governance, the ship maintenance, construction repair, suite strategy. There's a lot of topics here to be considering as we progress in the packet. We shared with you a lot of, of information. As, as you've mentioned, I have, you know, some of these items just listed out here for a big picture view of it. And, you know, we'll take some time appears after lunch and to continue going through it after the public comment period. But I could start by saying that a lot of this information that's provided to you, we've been working on in preparation for this over the past few months, and there's certainly more information that that can be addressed.
And as you requested, some of this information has also been requested by the governor's office and members of the legislature, and then provided to them. Those materials are, are shared here with you as well. And would you like me to continue going slides stopping? This is just letting us know what we're really gonna have to be paying attention to gonna take. Excellent. So we do have attached op in the operations and management component, six months off operating plan. Our current operating plan actually goes to June 30th and captain Fabi and, and his staff are updating this. And we'll be providing that to share with the members in the public here shortly. We also do have a five year engineering master plan. That's been provided to you a workforce action plan and then progress, which is not yet been shared or their 20 year optimization plan in our communication plan.
We'll have time to go more in depth on topics after lunch. When, when we dig in a little deeper, we've shared on the topic of enhancing revenue and reducing costs. We do have every year a market that's created by AME tests. And we also have provided the USC financial report for FY 21, which is available and online to the public. And it's, it's provided here in your folders and there's some on the table for those that walked in, you're able to read through those. There are other things that we can provide information on, including the infrastructure bill as requested, and we'll have the traffic report for FY 21 provided soon as well. Those numbers are currently being finalized by our business manager regarding the management of personnel. We have a number of items to you, and one which addresses our re staffing shortages, a topic which we'll be discussing later.
We also have a couple of high level white papers regarding the status of union negotiations and the workforce action plan. The workforce action plan is something that we've been working on in collaborate to address retention and recruitment efforts, both short term. And as most of you know, we have been providing supplemental contracts services to some communities when AMHS has not been able to meet our public schedule. It has been a priority that we, we meet the needs of our communities, especially as we have, you know, included in our called the schedule. And so we have utilized services of col belt and Allen Marine. The nature of these contracts is that for one of our contracts, there's four scheduled trips between now and June 30th. And after that, it'll be on an as needed basis. And another contract we have available, especially for a Lynn canal as well for as need take this. So it is our priority to be servicing our communities with our vessels and our staff. And when that's not possible, we're trying to come up with some out ofthe box, creative ways to meet our needs. And so this document goes into detail about that
For ship maintenance, construction, and repair, we have provided some extensive information online in the sleep status page of the aha website that includes sleep condition surveys on every vessel and an executive summary, which consolidates information from every vessel. And this is the five year engineering master plan in the lower left hand corner. And we also have provided inform about our construction contracting both on a shore side and a vessel basis. So how much money are we currently working with right now, both federally and state funded. And then what percent of that work is complete. We also provided the update that captain Fay prepared for the Southeast conference that was held in the last two days For special construction. This is a list of, We provided a spreadsheet of breakdown of the current expenses and also a published schedule or the schedule for the PRV, our plans for getting that out for RFP and also how we plan to lay the ke by December. And we'll be talking a of that further. And that is like, the pause is 1145. If you'd like to transition, I would.
So we can start with people in the room for comments. That would be appropriate. And again, we're interested to hear what you say. We are gonna ask you to please keep it to three minutes and the timer will let you know near about minutes and 30 and that's just so we can get to as many people as possible. If we run out of folks, either here or online who would like to speak, and we still have time left, we'll invite you back up to give us a little bit more. We still have to say fair And ma'am sir, we have about four people currently online and we'll, if there's more that continue to call in, I'll let you know. I mean that for comment. Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and start here then for folks that are sitting here and then I'll go to someone online, then back to someone here, someone online that's right. Okay. Larry Johansen.
I live in Haines now and grew up in Ketchikan. , but describe my experience with cooking with retired as the director of I guy command. These are people that on our best pay thousand dollars a day, My experience that people very valuable with high into the, So it might help. It would be, I do need once a while
My comments come from many years of experience. In fact I was born the same year that the ferry system was created. To say I have grown up with the ferries would be an understatement. Through out my life stages I have gotten to know the ferries very well. I have sailed on everyone of the ferries in my lifetime including the Wickersham. In the summer my mother would take the family station wagon and take the ferry to downtown Seattle at the Alaskan Avenue terminal to visit my grandmother. When we came back she would have bought enough whole sale food to fill the car and last the winter. As I got older school trips on the ferries was how we all gathered for basketball tournaments. It was the same age cohort from other towns that we had always known. It was celebration like in that half the school went on theses trips not just the players. The pep band cheer squads and even the honor society got to go too. I went north on the ferry to Haines and on to Wasilla via the un-paved Alaskan Highway to visit my family. Skagway did not have a road out of town yet. I would take the ferries south to Prince Rupert to connect with the highway to Seattle hospitals. I would take the ferry to go to college at Bellingham once it became the southern terminal. As an adult I worked nearly 30 years in the tourism business for the West family. When Cruise West folded in 2010 and I was the Director Southeast Alaska Operations. In that capacity I was responsible for all land side operations which included stevedoring motorcoach and sales & service. I became noted for my creative solutions under stress and rose through the ranks and as the company grew to 8 ships operating in Alaska I was able to train and develop a staff of over 60 employees in three division in Ketchikan Petersburg and Juneau. We operated high end tours with small ships that promised high service. Our guest paid easily 1000 and upwards day for their cruise to Alaska and we always had the highest rating on land of service and guest satisfaction. Their is a lot of pressure to deliver exceptional service to some one expecting that high level of service. My experience here is unique and Board should pay attention to what I m proposing in the next section. In my professional career I again relied on the ferry system to move my fleet of 40 vehicles among the different towns. I also used the ferries to get my self around Southeast Alaska. I have indeed grown up with the ferry system. During my long career l was in position to hire many employees and silently flipped a 90% out of state hire to a 90% in state hire by the time I left Cruise West. Many of the people I hired from out of state have since become state residents and are contributing citizens. I also established a working arrangement with over 100 local business that serviced our Alaskan fleet of ships . I was loudly an internal advocate and quietly a public advocate of turning Juneau into a major turn port for almost every ship in our fleet with an over night stop in Juneau. That would drive more than 10 000 visitors into local restaurants hotels and excursions. I understand how to maximize economic impact because I ve done it. The other factor that contributes to my understanding is my father who worked many years on the ferries and was the Regional Director of IBU for several terms. Growing up I saw my father working with the members of the Inland Boatsman Union to the benefit of its members and their families. In the end it is the employees that make and organization work well. What do I recommend to ensure that the AMHS thrives going forward? We open the Prince Rupert Terminal immediately. I can t believe we have allowed this vital link to disappear from the system. It really is important that we open up this option. Accessing this route will allow travelers to flow through and feed the other routes and drive people into the towns of Southeast. If Prince Rupert cannot or will not cooperate there is no reason we can t go to Hyder to access the highway south. We maximize the ferry system to the economic potential of its riders. Some where someone decided that it was to everyone s benefit to move the ferry terminals out of the towns that they serve. Yeah it is cheaper to operate from a lot 20 miles out of town but that does not do anything to strengthen the economic impact of travellors getting on and off the ferries. If we were to prioritize the location for ferry terminals based on their economic potential for the hotels restaurants and other services the economic multipliers could easily make up the cost of operating in downtown locations. At least experiment with this in the winter time when Ketchikan and Juneau basically close up downtown. Offer vendor services and opportunities to third parties on board the ferries. There are many services that people would pay for onboard the ships if they were available. Subway Super 8 Cindy s Cruises and tours or whatever the private industry deems they can sell. There should be space and facilities that could be granted to private industry to provide. Where ever we are able to provide a customer pool there is an opportunity to make money and provide a service. People will pay for a good service that is needed. Long before oil was discovered in Alaska the founders and early leadership of the AMHS saw the establishment of the ferry system as the great economic stimulater for All of Alaska. To save the ferry system we need to resort to thinking again that it is an economic stimulater. The key emphasis is to use the ferry system as the great hope for economic development for all of Alaska yet again. Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the future of the AMHS.
Good morning. I'm Robert Venables. I am the executive director for Southeast Conference. And want to say again with the word of thanks both, to the Governor and to the legislature for really prioritizing input from this board. I think that is critical for the needs of the system that depends on the system. And I think that you extend thanks to each of you for bringing you, your time and efforts to, to this there's a large body of, of, of work. And I think you all are largely aware of it. And that resulted out of both reshaping studies that is concluded and also the AMHS reform efforts plus 20 years of stacks of studies as well, which if you have a part-time finding those and have some significant point to that direction, but as resources, I want to offer myself as well as Southeast Conference to always be available to you individually. I hail from Haines where I spent over 30 years residing in the home place of the Marine highway. System's first, regularly scheduled commercialized system course now Southeast conference were formed in 1958 to advocate for the formation of the Marine highway system. And then
It just makes you sound old. So anyway, I think I just want tp make sure that you knew that we have made ourselves available to you to be a resource at any time, but thinking of resources, one of the things that want to really recommend as a former MTA member and as one that you know, advocated for house bill 63, as I'm really glad, also wanted say that the efforts to create a professional board and to have a change. My management director were recommendations that came out of the last group. So I'm really glad to see that, to see Katherine tire and the energy she brings to this. One of the things, that she's already noted to you that says the board must do is take a look at the gap. As you take a look at the professional skills that you bring forward to the table, not everybody has everything and collectively there may be gaps.
And so that's one of the things that the law calls for you to examine. And in my mind, the I of the reason for that is so that you can make sure to balance that and seek that counsel and expertise out. And one of the things I would really recommend this for take the look at, especially in light of the fact, there's an opportunity to weigh on budget request is that you have your own consultants that could be on call that you can vet information that comes in there are many times where you're getting information streams and just you want to check it out. And I really think that would be of value to this board. Be able to have someone on call that is your, your consultants, and kind bring a different perspective at times. So I want to throw that, that concept out your way and just kind of touch base, on a couple of things.
That's our membership identified as, as concerns during our three days just included these resolutions have not been adopted yet by the board. So as soon as they are in the form that they're in, we'll pass them to you. But I just kind of want to share some of the things that we're tracking and following and want to work with you on as well. One is the fact that as I mentioned about the, the, IIJA funds that are coming out there are funds there to do some really exciting work, to modernize the fleet, take a look at low emissions and electric carriers. We're already having that dialogue at the state and federal level, and we're really excited about what those things bring, but also the strategic use of those funds to make sure. And that's what the, one of the resolutions calls on, is that we know that some of those funds should be, and need to be used for operations, but at the same time, we want to find that balance between just consuming those funds and using those funds for long term investments.
And then finally, of course, you know, our efforts to support whatever governance and staffing changes that should be made in order to make the system more responsive and effective going forward. So those are the kind of the main concerns that we, we will continue to work on at Southeast Conference, but we know those are, are high on your list as well. And as a chair, you know, talking about, you know, short term versus long term horizons. I think that the answer is, yes, you have to, you have to know that your short-term efforts are going towards your long-term horizon. Then you have to have a long term plan in order to know what you work on, but really urges, take a look at this five-year horizon with the IIJA money and really weigh in far and strong on how those should be invested, not just used cuz right now, by there's more, more money available to AMHS than there's been for a long, long, long time. That's not reasonably excited about operations as its reason to be excited about investments. And so, we really challenged the board, to take a hard look at that and let us know there's anywhere that we could be a resource to you for your service.
Andrew Roberts using the docs, private industry. I was course trying to find, actually utilize some cases. The were existence reason, not a few numbers by the time that the number would once a week, sometimes industry could be using these suggestions. One of the things we are done, I realized that when we made decisions to put this out the road where cheaper operate, I economic factors, people to the terminals, them like restaurant simulator, that simulates long term, we don't try to maximize the profit two, three down there.
I like to think that we have a symbiotic relationship in that it is in to run as much as possible, but the crew members, the communities and the department of transformation. So what I would like to say is that we would like to be considered a resource or some way that we can assist as much possible and trying to create a system that works for everyone. I wanna agree with Robert that a consultant might be a great idea to provide some outsider fresh perspective, but I wanna close by saying that we would like to be contacted or included in anything that could be beneficial for everyone involved. Thank you. Which So with looking to unmute the callers here, If you could please unmute the callers I'm unable to, Or caller number 4 6 5 2 4 8 7. If you could please unmute your line. I comment be wonderful. Thank you.
This is representative St. Students. I just am calling. I'm not calling to give you any advice. Believe it or not. Unlike myself. I just wanna say thank you to all of the board members who have so graciously agreed to participate on this board. I am really excited. You have a daunting task in front of you, but I'm looking at the makeup of this board and we're very, very lucky. We have some very capable, bright, smart people, and I'm excited. And I just wanted to call to say thank you to you all.
And again, I think that when we sit down to the bottom of the agenda and start really looking at what we think is important, what our priorities are, you know, what we're looking at a long term range, what, what information we need from AMHS, what we like to hash out with some members may idea from KCO. So it could be as simple as we say, we need to replaces for the infrastructure money that we have is plan, use that we need to look at funding, but whether it's a area authority or corporation, some sort of corporate ation, under many of other departments of the state, you know, whatever those, whatever we think are some of the most important things that are gonna be in that long term plan. And we identify and start working towards those. I think then we're gonna start to come up. We're gonna see where we need to go in the short term here, but it, we got a big part, again, I'm trying to fight with which horse do I wanna put in front as I think we all are. But I think as, as we go through the rest of this conversation that we have today, I get to that from sitting there, I I'm holding back that have, you know, a list of items that board members see our board to be part of the strategy
Beyond. Okay. Thank you. So I'm reading your recommendation for state operating capital, but, and wondering about the timeliness of that the board might want say, I mean, we're, let's, that's now we have a alleged proposed by the governor before the legislature. And is that something the board wants to put on before? I dunno asking otherwise we wait too long, it's just gonna be implemented. And then we're working on the short term plan for the next, I don't quite know. So it's kinda a question
And I think I know that the budget is out and that UMHS has put together a schedule. I believe for that budget. If, if we can have that presented to us in a way, if somebody says, you know, come in and just give us the, the, you know, 1 0 1 on what that looks like, that would be helpful in terms of whether we believe that we need to get involved this year, right now with this legislation, capital budgets. I, you know, I don't know where we're gonna go with the infrastructure. It might be the very end of the session that kind be kind helping part of, but, but we can certainly make recommendations on how we think it should be to large portion of it. So is anyone you're familiar with T budget? I know I've glance it, but I'm not There's our presenter
Good to be, to see I, I got your screen and I be your pages, but it doesn't As a short term stop gap. I think benefit to the people, Alaska is to find a way to stagger some of our shipyard things so we can provide service year round that's, that's the biggest thing. The third term system needs to lose something. So there's always a vessel in operation status. It can be both used in Southwest. And so, so, and that might be a, a tall order, but that's gonna go a long way into getting the public's trust back out on a system that they can account on.
I, I like to expand in on that just a little bit. I think right now, if we look at this year alone, we're below, what I would say is a minimum level of service. If the states broke completely broke, what are we gonna stick to as a, a bare minimum level of service? There's a lot of number going back years and years and years, but until we have a baseline, this is the bare minimum we're gonna do. We don't know what we can build on. And, and the, it makes the, you know, we need, we need to know what that is and build it up from there. So the, these facts and figures make sense like we need is saying, because right now the public's not happy with, they're not happy with the level of support we have. So I would say that this year's representation of below what should be minimum.
Then we can start looking at what will be return on an investment, what will be additional, what can we do to expand the tourism and things like that to, to me, I think that it's a critical component of, of, of coming up with some kind of schedule that says that the state is gonna stick to in the worst case scenario, this is what we're gonna have this we're gonna have, I mean, buses have routes, you know, when they lose money and do things or snow routes like school buses, they pull back and do you know, this is our bare minimum. So I, I, for me, for both long term and short term planning, I think we need to have a bare minimum. We need to know what that is and what we're building off of,
You know, for performance measure. It seems like we're tracking number of events, but not the magnitude of events. I can. I I'm thinking that maybe the number of reservations that had to be changed, how, how, how has it affected the, the public that, you know, if there's a major event, then the hundred reservation has to be changed. That could be a, a tracking point and sorry, I'm, I'm assuming that today we're, we're going over what our job is gonna be in the long term. So performance measures, I'm assuming if one day we're gonna hold a meeting and you're going to present to us, this are measures that we're currently using. What do you think? So that's when we're gonna get into the video, whether we should be talking about scheduled changes as a performance. So talk about the number of passengers.
Yes, I think so. Yes. Thank you. You correct. The intention here is that we have to take time and to evaluate performance measures and, and this is one sample even even outdated. And so it's just an example that we have over, you know, Matt McLaren has gathered at one point a list of a hundred different performance measures that we could use. And the slide deck is very expensive. So it'll be a good to take time to dig in, to evaluate which of those you may like to see, or what other ones, we're not whatever.
I, I wanna just amplify something that I think it was captain Hillard just said, which is that if, if the system is operating suboptimally in terms of deliver in saying nothing about safety, or, you know, the efficacy of how the, the system is being operated, just that it it's for whatever reason, fallen below minimum service levels, that, that one of the great challenges, and I can say in terms of looking at traffic and volume reports over the years, and, and looking at studies, that when we base our decision making on the most recent history of the Marine highway, we are Benchmarking a, a system that is not operating at baseline or at optimal levels. And so I just wanna say that it, it, as much as we want to look at performance measures, I think it's also this board's responsibility to identify the, the benchmarks for those performance measures that, that we would hope to achieve in and not base it on a, a recent history that, that doesn't meet our standards.
Thank thank you, Ann. And also too, I, I know we, we're already to talk about a lot of these things, but today is really basically, you know, kind of a presentation of what we're going to have to be looking at here in the near future, in the near future to, to just really start to, to realize just how, how big of a lift, how heavy a lift this is going to be. So my, my understanding and intention would be that at our later meetings, we'll decide these items. We need to hear about more information on these items or, or, or come to agreement or where we may looking here, the next meeting, the same thing, we just can't do it all.
With the way this board is organized, how is this gonna, how, how are we gonna be able to affect quality of long term planning with changes in governors or additional bills being passed by the legislature? That's gonna be a moving target. I would say year after year after year.
That that's one of our big challenges that one of the challenges from this board just as kind of the foundational part of this is to make recommendations on, on governance and on funding stability that avoid that. But you're right, you know, until there are structural changes on, on governance, et cetera, that's still gonna be up of the air. I mean, it always has that. It will be. So we're gonna have to figure out what a responsible, solid governance structure is that removes as much interference from shifts in administration. So legislatures as possible. We'll take it all away. Cause we're, we're taking public. That's one of that's one of our big goals.
One of the fundamental purposes of how the board was structured, Given that it was legislature's intent was to have both bodies of the legislature and the governor to have, You know, it's a voice of not just, it's a voice of, of, of the government, I guess. And the people given that, that appointment by the two different bodies, three different bodies, I guess, house Senate, and the governor gives you a little more stability, a little more teeth board was I think the goal. So I, I think it brings a different dynamic far as its voice as well because administration ignores the board, the legislature might pick up and say, Hey, why are you ignoring that? And vice versa. So bring a different dynamic.
Thanks, Shirley. I just wanted to share with the board that we, in my day job, we did have a presentation from Neil Steiner with the office of management and budget yesterday. And he did bring up several key points about the AMHS budget, one characterization that I wanted to share. And perhaps there could be some confirmation from deputy commissioner or captain Fay, is that the, the, I, I J a funding that will be available over the course of the next five years will essentially allow the state of Alaska to bank fairbox revenues for five years. And those words specifically the words that he used. So I I'm looking for a, a confirmation or re-characterization of that statement, if that's the department's understanding. And I, I would just, I would like to also say that it might be worthwhile to have invite miles baker to present to the board on the, I, I J a and the work that he's doing to fully characterize what the opportunities are through the infrastructure act. And I'll have to come back to my third point when I remember it. Thank you very much.
Thanks for that. Wonderful. The last couple life items to touch on here is that the board has the ability to form task forces. Now that may meet separate of your full board meeting. And as we progress throughout the day, as you identify those, you can include and invite other people that are on board members as part of the task force to help move that dialogue forward. Like wanna do that, take, take that up for consideration at the next meeting to really digest everything that can be extremely helpful. And it can also, yeah, I think it's, it's a great idea that
know I'm Patricia Phillips. I'm mayor for the city of Pelican for inviting me. So I appreciate that the term stay sustainable and sensible, and staying the course to provide reliability. And so the small towns, you know, that rely on this link that the highway system provides us. I mean, so you have Angoon, Kake, Icy straight corridor, Pelican and you know, somebody mentioned bare minimum service. And it's like, I think we're there now, but there's talk of making us even less. I mean, even more, bare minimum and think bare minimum is like, needs to be determined what that is with community input, because it, it's not what it is now. It's not enough service. I was at the Southeast conference and we get to chat during the breaks. And Senator Stedman came down to the meeting and met with us, you know, rural communities, Angoon Kake, Pelican and Yakutat and Jody Mitchell was there from IPEC. She represents small rural communities, but electrical, you know, co-op but it was, you know, the vice mayor of Kake, Pauletta Jackson who told me that Pelican gets better service than Kake. I'm thankful this service for the service that we get in Pelican, if we can be in there, you know, at, at a better baseline than now for the long term, that would be great. And so, you know, talking about the STIP, if you're, cuz you look at the, what provides service to Pelican is the, and the LeConte and Aurora. And we're really thankful for the Catamaran service that's coming in. Cause they can utilize our dock, but the very terminal dock can only handle those two vessels. We can't handle any other vessels. So, there's really no diversity in the schedule to Pelican. We have to go with either one of those vessels. If you could include a dock modification in Pelican in the STIP, so other vessels could come to our dock, that would be great. Thank you for your service and I'll be listening in now.
Yeah. I just wanted to reflect on a couple of points with regard to some of the public comment. One question that I think would be helpful. We've asked for additional information with regard to the fleet service status, and I think it would be helpful to also see the alignment of the fleet with shoreside capacity. This has been fairly consistent operat all pick up in the system with regard to the capability of vessels to align with shoreside facilities. So it'd be helpful to understand that when we're reviewing fleet status and, and then an addendum to that comment, which would be obviously we're at early days with the Testino replacement vessel, but that will be a critical issue. I can speak to the history of, for example, bringing the kennecot online and it not being able to service a substantial number of ports that it was designed ostensibly designed to serve. So I'd like to, to see what the alignment of the, the fleet is with the shore side infrastructure.
So on the topic of meeting community needs, there has been evaluation that was done as part of earlier come months to the reshaping working group by the Alaska municipally. So we have that information and we'd like to, you know, continue to update this information and provide that back to the members. So as we move forward, we are working to, this is from 2020, make sure that we're still in alignment with what the new request were at that time. So because this isn't finished, this isn't provided to the, On the topic of reliability on, there are a number of metrics that can be provided. One of them of which was the Customer satisfaction report that AMHS prepares every month. So they have a number of survey questions when you complete a failing with AMHS and go, those responses are compiled. And we have an annual summary of those that are month by month summary of those. So it's very, very helpful information that we can
Share. We also have metrics that on our departure rate and things that we're gonna need going into further. So with the liability, there are a lot of ways that we can measure this based on how we'd like to go about it. On the topic of regulatory compliance. AMAs is regulated for state statute of 17 Alaska code of 70, and that information's available online per captain FAL staff have been working with their department a lot to update some of these as they may be a slightly outpatient, might be something for the board to consider looking at. And with that, we are caught up on our slides. I do have a few comments that have been shared that are on Facebook comments. You'd like me to share them. Okay, Thank you. Sam's been actively helping with Facebook and other things in the background. So thanks for forwarding me. This is thanks to you while this is Damon wood. Inberg from PopLock cooperative association, There's need and desire to connect the underserved indigenous this communi to Alaska of the ferry system. We are interested in assisting to facilitate this however possible. So thanks again, please let us know how we can support you.
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