July 22, 2022 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Okay. Yeah. I had a side meeting with Catherine and I had a question on the crew quarters for the Tazlina I asked, why are they, and why are the price more than what they were in the hub? And the explanation was 30% more for materials and supplies. And then, in addition, there's a wastewater treatment plant that they're considering that looks like they've decided to put that in another question I had was on the Matt Nuka and Catherine showed me where to find the 20, 20 vessel condition report. And they had, a dead-end corridor project in 2020 at 33 million, 275,000. So that is the same, I mean, I guess we can expect that that would go up if materials and supply are also a problem, but what I'm waiting for now is exactly what the project for Matanuska is. Assuming we're only going to be doing the dead-end quarters. Are we taking the cabins and rearranging them? Are we throwing away all the cabins and buying new ones? Or what, what is the scope of everything? 33 million is a lot. So that's where I am.
Thank you, Shirley. I, I just wanted to say thank you to Katherine and Norm for the informational session. A week or so ago, it was helpful to spend a little time and ask some direct questions. I want to say that, you know, the challenges and opportunities before the Marine highway; therefore, this board is a Gordian knot of issues. It's sometimes tough to tease out the priorities and what needs to happen. I am increasingly focused on what it will take to get the ACF vessels fully operational and capable of serving the communities they are intended to do. And so I will be listening for those details and trying to piece them together, if not necessarily. And some of the information being presented to us today is pieces together in a way that helps illustrate what it will take to make those vessels fully operational, contribute to the system, serve the communities in Alaskans, and hopefully increase the operational flexibility of the system. So thank you for that.
Madam chair. Thank you. I don't have much; I don't want to jump ahead of the plan or anything. I just wanted to thank everyone again for volunteering on this board. The partnerships we create are essential, and we are trying to develop many right now. And, you know, and I, we want to improve that partnership and make sure we have well that, that we worked together and it was, there is so much going on. We had a great meeting yesterday to try and get our arms around all the planning underway. And there was there are many participants, you know, consultants members of, you know, Robert Venables from Southeast conference, Neils Anderson from AML means a lot of, of people, are involved right now, including this board and, and the partnerships we're building are, are impressive. And I'm, I'm excited about where we're going. So thank you again.
I want to say I appreciate the sentiment. I am very nostalgic about mini vessels in the fleet, but all vessels have a usable life, we are pushing the age limit on our fleet as it exists now. And at least the MAA, will be preserved, and the public will be able to visit it. So, it may no longer be part of the highway system, but it will continue to exist. So anyway, I appreciate that. I think everybody feels very nostalgic about the ships, but they have a usable life. It's an unfortunate part. It's, it's like dog ownership. We're going to outlive the vessels, and we're going to outlive our pets. So
Okay. Let's see. There's no one else in the queue. I think it's that. We'll go ahead and continue to move forward then. And maybe we can; if we have time at the end of the meeting, we can back up to public comment after the board has had their discussions. So the first item under new business is a discussion item, item number six, the STIP amendment number four, comment process. And Katherine, I'll turn it over to you to turn it over to James.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. For the record, my name's James Marks, Director of Planning and Program Development at the transportation department. And thank you, chair, mark, and the board, for giving me some time to talk. Katherine and I reached out this week and asked if we could talk about some of the happenings in, in planning in general, we'll also talk specifically about some of the planning efforts that DC Carpenter alluded to a lot of planning, kind of an unprecedented level planning happening and, and organizing it all is, is going to be very important. So I apologize. I have a slide deck that did not make it into your packet. I'll make sure that it makes its way over to you. And I will see bearing my screen here. Can I? I don't know if I can do that. Katherine, do I need to send this to you?
Give it a shot. I'm unfortunately not seeing the function I'm typically seeing. I sent it to you Katherine. Oh, wait. There it goes. I have it now. Okay. That should show STIP amendment four. Can everyone see that? Okay. Yes. Well, I'm going to try to be brief with my comments. So feel free to jump in here. So STIP amendment four, you know, we typically go through three to four amendments a year. This was a vast and robust amendment and included many provisions in the infrastructure, investment, jobs act, capital budget, and some discussions and decisions the board has made. And AMHS staff have made in terms of taking advantage of and delivering on the promise of IIJA. So there are a lot of new federal and, and state programs. I'll talk about those just briefly. This we're very early in the comment period. So now is a great opportunity if the board or others wish to get involved, and I'll provide some information later. Still, we are getting some interest from the legislature and other key individuals. So we're starting to set up meetings to discuss what some of these changes mean and represent.
There's a carbon reduction and sustainable transportation program that you might hear more from Katherine at some point where it's looking at tying together. A lot of the new federal programs have significant eligibility and a lot of overlap. So trying to pull it all together into a single strategy that, that ties in well with the governor's sustainable energy initiative and puts a focus on energy and sustainability in Alaska, you may have also seen the ice roads and seasonal roads program and the capital budget as well as the national EV infrastructure program. And I'll pause there. Cause I think I see a hand.
Yeah, thanks, James. I just had a question on the community bridge program, some of the AMHS docs and I've lost track of this, but not all of them are state facilities. Still, they've always been characterized as bridges and fallen under the bridge program within DOT and so I'm just curious if those community docs would also fall under this community bridge program for potential funding.
Yes. Both within the state and federally. So the federal there's a federal discretionary grant program out there also for the bridge in invest is called the bridge investment program. And that's the criteria is anything on the national bridge inventory or the NBI, and yes, a number of our terminals and things are also included. Like some big culverts also had other things, but anything on this is eligible for those programs. Yes.
Yeah, certainly. So I I've, I've pulled out here, and I'll make this available to you again. This is also available on our website, but these are the AMHS projects of notes that are happening in amendment four. The OC bay ferry terminal is adding some additional funding in FY23. The test replacement vessel is moving its construction phase into F F Y 23. And then there's a host of new design projects from Ango ferry, terminal modifications, Pelican ferry, terminal modifications, and systemwide mooring improvements. The Matanuska replacement vessel, mainline vessel replacement, AMHS Alaska class ferry Tazlina crew course. So a lot of the things that you've been talking about, you'll see these represented in the STIP amendment four, these are mostly going to be design starts. So please, if you have some time, we encourage you to take a look at those and provide us with your comments, and I'll stop for any questions.
Okay. Quick question I had; I'm sorry, James, just briefly. One of the things that, you know, we haven't looked at yet as a board. Still, it's going to be part of a long-range plan, like it or not, looking at some of the smaller communities we serve, like Chenga. The fact that the ferry terminal modifications between the two bills were, you know, darn near 30 million with rider ships sometimes, you know, in the teams for a year. So putting something in the step doesn't necessarily make it, so it doesn't; the money's not released for the project right away. Is that, is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct. We are, we put it in there by we, we program by phase. So what you're gonna see is a lot of design starts for some of these where you're talking to like Pelican and goon where we're, we're just getting the ball started. It does not fully fund the project. And that will be phased out over years based off of both development, timelines, and funding availability.
So if you have not been involved or commented on the step before, these are some of the links, and again, we'll make this available to you. It is published both on our DOT website, as well as our online public notices, the email alaska.gov welcomes any comments that you may have, and it's a formal process. So we, we, we co-store and respond to everything and to the extent that we're able to, or, or that it necessitates, it will make changes to the amendment. If it's necessary based on comments
Yeah. Thanks, James. I just wanted to amplify what Shirley was saying and also add Prince William Sound, the economic development district to the list as well. That really gives you a catch Aika on Alaska. And I'll just say that, you know, I mean the purpose of those districts is to provide a planning entity where one does not exist. And so throughout AMHS's planning efforts, partnering with those districts, I think is an important component of community outreach. AML certainly does have the infrastructure for capturing statewide projects and visualization those statewide projects. So I applaud you, for pursuing that, but I would definitely add those other entities to your efforts.
Yeah, those are all points, very, very well taken. And then, and, you know, ones that fortunately we've had also. So we completely agree that we haven't reached out directly with the thumb, but with others, we have, we have had a call with Robert Venables as, as recent as this week can start to talk about this and how do we start to make forge some of these partnerships and, you know, putting together plans and longstanding infrastructure that can consist, sustain the wins of politics and other things. So I think that's great and fully supportive of that.
So this just gives you a sense, of what all of this, this work might mean when we talked about, you know, these new programs that are going to be coming up. It's not just a single call for projects. And one of the things that I've heard since joining the department is the lack of consistency. So one of the things that I I'm trying to work towards with within planning is creating a clear and consistent planning process that is understandable, that is easy to access, and easy to forecast for the public. They can know when to engage when a thing is happening. So this is the first draft at well, several drafts later, but the first draft for out for public consumption of what that series of rolling solicitations might look like with these new programs, the numbers that you see here represented are, are deliberative.
We are actively seeking feedback. We presented earlier this week to the roads and highways, advisory board seeking input on priorities. And it's, it's not just transportation priorities, but now it's getting down to funding priorities. Some of these programs can receive funds from multiple federal sources, PTP, the rural ports and barge landings, the sustainable energy program, and ice roads. Those are all coming out of one pot of money federally. So what is the right distribution right in the past, that's largely just been the purview of DOT in separating out where, and how those funds are distributed. We're trying to change that paradigm a bit to get more input on how the funds get distributed out, making a regular and routine call for projects so that communities can know when their opportunity is before this last CTP. I think it had been almost seven years since the previous call for projects. And it's just impossible to try to plan for something like that. So this, this gives you a sense of, of where, where we're tried to head with transparency and consistency. And I'm, I welcome any questions on this before I move on.
That's certainly been. One of the challenges is, is capacity. Yeah. CTP and tap, in particular, are pretty onerous, to administer just because there's a lot written out in our regulations and what has to happen for those things. So all of the other programs are gonna be a bit more light. They're gonna run more like our trails and rec program where we'll have criteria, we'll have called, it'll be a much faster turnaround, but backing up a bit more broadly. It's our regulations in terms of these programs and how we administer them are very out of date and a bit cumbersome. So we are looking more broadly at a regulations package update.
Thanks, Shirley. Yeah, I'm not asking you to own this James, but, in the past, there certainly has been some community, some lack of transparency, and some community consternation and not understanding how, when things are prioritized on a regional basis. And then they go into the statewide planning office and the projects rankings come out very differently than what the communities expected them to. And so I, I would say to whatever degree under, I understand that that process, you guys have to juggle a lot of priorities when you get on the statewide level, looking at the money allocations and what have you, but folks, you know, our, our geography is confounding in terms of going through these planning processes and having it be completely equitable, feel completely equitable, particularly to rural communities. So I, don't wanna take up a bunch of time with it, but I would say that there is certainly a history there that people, as you think about updating that, having the transparency, having the drill down information, to see that projects are still alive and will be considered in the future, even if they didn't make the priority list in any given cycle.
Yeah. Excellent points and all, all very well received. I think, you know, one of the things that we're absolutely working towards is transparency in all things, but, but notably in decision making, one of the things we keep grappling with is this idea of legacy and the decisions that we're making now in both investment and, and in priorities are gonna affect the state for the next five to 10 years. And we wanna make sure we do it right and get as much input as possible. So yeah, very well received. Okay. Okay. Moving right along, we did this month receive the federal transit administration's notice of funding opportunities. They've L combined the fairies into a single NOFO, which with, with some surprising caveats, the, sorry, was there a comment?
Grown. Yeah. Yes. We had that grown too. The first one going to leak, not terribly surprising, not a lot of surprises, was the low and no fairy notice. Again, this is, you know, capital projects, electric, low emission fairies, electrification charging, and fueling infrastructure. It carries the typical 80-20 matches—one thing we are pursuing with all these discretionary grants on the AMHS. One of the things that got worked into IIJA was an expansion of our provision, where anything on the Alaska highway going into, you know, have junction and into Canada is eligible at 100%. That includes the AMHS. IIJA expanded that to also include any discretionary grants awarded. So we're looking at what that might look like, the challenge and all transparency there is that the provision exists under title 23. All of these are coming through FTA, which is title 49. So there might be some pushback there in terms of whether or not we're able to use that provision. Couple of other items in the NOFO. They are looking at prioritizing zero emissions over low emissions. They're also prioritizing projects that can be obligated within 12 months. So they're looking at things that are ready to go. That's not to say that things cannot come in longer, and they're just going to give a higher priority. I think the timeline is five years to obligate these.
Yeah, just real briefly. So I, you know, I, I, the board knows that DOT is working with Southeast conference. I believe on an Elliot shipyard ship design down in Seattle on, on this, on, on the NOFO. Does, does the use or non-use of funding for a low or no emitting ferry, if, if that's not feasible for our system, does that hurt us in the funding for capital for other vessels?
The electric ferry only, maybe just between hay and Skagway or Tulia, but it's still, it's still a long run in, than most electric carriers running today, worldwide are running. And, and that's only cuz they're fairies, they're carrying people, not cargo, but operating in planning projects, not eligible. How does that shift the look ahead towards the AMHS budget for next year? And does that mean planning projects like the, you know, where's the funding than for the three projects we have underway or one or two underway right now? And when going out for an RFT, the $900,000, does that mean those funds would have to come from the state?
We have no that's so we do have planning funds and we, we would still use a number of these things. If you go and look at amendment four, you're gonna see ferryboat funds so we can use those. So this is separate, this is the competitive process where we would write a grant application to go out for the, for this pot of money. But we would be competing with, with every other state. This is not part of our formula funds. Our formula funds are separate from this.
Else that is the 100% match provision I was talking about where we, anything on the AMHS could, has, could always be at 100% where the state did not have to prevent match. I, I J expanded that to also include discretionary grants, but like I said, that only exists in title 23. And because these funds are coming through title 49, we may not get that flexibility.
The one that we've all been waiting for, and the one where most of our jaws dropped is the rural ferry notice of funding opportunity. They did, as I mentioned before, combined, you know, the rural electric and other ferries, but they implemented quite a few new rules that were not in law that explicitly called out states in their guideline guidance that came out, they included states and territories. There's been quite a bit of analysis to identify, you know, what other entities might even be eligible. Guam, for example, has one route that it's kind of odd because it it's one point and directly, but because, the route goes all the way around the island might reach that 50-mile threshold, some of the other kinds of alarming pieces or, or challenging pieces that we'll have to figure out in terms of how does this work into the strategy on the there's three pieces, there's the operating the capital. And the planning that you can apply for operating came out and said that it's a 50% match requirement. They also said that you cannot decrease your state funding. It has to be a new service. And they explicitly called out that it has to be 75% of three, your average, over three years prior to COVID.
So what that means it's either a lot of new money going into those areas or, or some other strategy. So right now we're at the very other stages of figuring out what that means for what the plan has been. One of the other pieces, two other kinds of areas that, that we're kind of watching pretty closely in their language. They said that FTA can at their discretion, place a cap on any individual entity without much, without much guidance as to what would go into that decision. The other piece that we're watching, and this is this one is in law, is that the secretary can create a waiver process where somebody who might not be eligible, maybe they don't meet the 50-mile rule. They can submit anyways and potentially get a waiver issued. So all of these things adding up the program might be more challenging, to capitalize on. Then we're originally thinking on the capital and the planning side there, there's nothing really terribly surprising there it's the 80-20 distribution. It's the typical capital and planning grants that we could have always, you know, that we expected to see. And again, you know, we're pursuing Shawa, but because it's coming through title 49, we're, we're unsure sure of that. The success rate on that. And maybe, maybe I'll pause there if anybody has any questions.
Thanks. Madam chair. I just wanted to add on James, then, that everything you've said above applies to the capital side as well. I mean, not the match and all that and then, but the potential for a waiver potential for a cap. Right? Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. That's kind of a that could be, I surprising to me that they can implement that much change, and yeah. NOFO, you know, from the intent of the legislation. So I don't know, it's a long way to go here. I think. Thank you.
No, I think you're, you're about right. I haven't myself. I know there are conversations going on and even considering discussions, but definitely, if it comes down to yeah, I'll leave with that. As I said, there's a little bit, we have to work out here still. I think this is the initial B maybe on their part. We'll see where it goes.
And, and that concludes my, you know, I'll also be talking later a little bit about the long transportation plan. I don't know if anybody has any final thoughts on, on either the STIP amendment four or, or these funding opportunities, but I'd be happy to take any final questions.
Thanks, James. I think I, last question I have on the STIP is something that the board could weigh in with a comment by the board chair on behalf of the, of the board to support the items that for the AMHS to be, to be added to amendment number four, realizing that all of them may, may happen.
We, we welcome all, especially the good ones. Usually like the comments are not good ones, but every once in a while we get ones in support and those are especially meaningful. So yes, I would highly encourage the items that you do support. So we can add that to the record. And that record also goes to the federal highways administration and FTA to show that there is public support for it.
Okay. And, and there is a tight timeline on that. Do any of the board members not agree that maybe I would write up just a draft one-page comment from the board supporting these items in the STIP, realizing, again, we, all, most of us are familiar with the STIP process and it changes some things drop off and you don't know why some things get a better score than others. They're all gonna have to go through the process. And we don't know exactly where we're going with some of these communities where we can use according to the union agreements, alternative services needed, that may be something in the future. But in order to speak out we need to make a statement on behalf of board, would you be willing to entertain a draft letter?
Yeah. Thank you. I don't know how we can as a, a board take on all of these things and make a blanket comment on support of anything that might have a conflict with some of the other communities. So I, I don't know, again, this is a conversation a couple weeks ago. Would've been nice to have so that we could have some debated. It'd be nice to be able to read all of this information and go through it prior to us sitting here and talking about making a decision. It's I, I don't see how we can. Thank you.
I guess I would start if there is some incremental value to the STIP process to have them, or to AMHS to have the board weigh in on this, it seems to me that the amplification perhaps of a letter from aha would be simply to. I'm particularly considering a number of the shoreside projects that are essential for the full operational capacity of the ACF. And so again, if there's some marginal value, some amplification that would come from that to prioritize those projects and, and keep them in the ranking system, based on the funding availability, as we understand it, both the IIJA money and the existing formula or competitive grant funds that may, may become available. So there's actually, at least in my mind, there's more than three, but there are at least three types of funding that are potentially available for those projects. And I think that you know, we would wanna see them maintain their competitiveness in order to bring the system up to its full operational capacity.
I think so as well. And I, I just pulled up my email to, so we could go back and look at the amendments of note that James showed us and all of these items on here, or our items that in, in a short term, long term plan for the system need to be addressed at some point. And again, some of them may not happen in the future. Maybe they all will. I do not know, but it's good to look at that once again, I saw a hand from deputy commissioner,
Thanks sometimes lately in our work meetings, we're doing this because we can't find digital hand raise. So apologize. The one thing you know, that I will say in order to pursue some of these grants, I think, and James he's still on here, but they have to be itemized in the STIP to pursue the grants. Isn't that correct? Katherine? So that was one of the, you know, a lot of the items are listed in there as illustrative, meaning we're gonna pursue grant potentially grant opportunities and whether they get funded or not is T B D. But, but yeah, so that's why we put a lot of them in there. And I can think of one that actually I left out by mistake, but I'd like to get in there. I, I'm not sure the dead-end quarters are in there itemized out. It wasn't at one point, but we want to get it in there so we can pursue a grant for that. So things like that. Yeah. And then, like you you've said, I'm sure whether they get funding down the road will be the challenge. So thanks.
Oh, thank you. Didn't raise my hand. Still trying to figure out how to do it. So I would, I'd like trying to think of a way to put this. I would give extra emphasis to projects where you hear from the community additional. In other words, if a community doesn't get behind a project, I'm not gonna give you as much support, but anyway, so we should be, I know I'll get out, encourage these smaller towns to pay attention here. They should be writing letters of support. If that makes sense.
it does Norm. Thank you. And that is definitely a part of the STIP process that asked for that. So again, the idea would be, I would just draft a very simple short letter that just has the list that we've seen before today that the board supports the addition of these and the STIP and just keep it that simple and let the process take care of itself. I don't see anything in here that would pit communities against communities. So, then I try to send the letter out. And if you all agree with it, that that's something you wanna do. You let me know, and we'll do it. And if not, then, then we won't. But I think we're going to have to make that decision with the letter before our next meeting. That's this has to be in mid-August. So deputy commissioner
It says annually of every year for the short-term plan. And that you would, the comprehensive long-term plan, I believe is five years to accomplish. This is a big task. And so this resolution would seek for the board to say, we know we can accomplish the following this year or that we're gonna shoot for the following this year. And it is less than the full measure of, of those activities and that you would, you would say, well, this is what we are going to try and accomplish to give yourself a marker to shoot for, and also for the department to focus on what we can do in providing information and work Bo on tasks, because ultimately, and I just read through the minutes of house bill 63, this advisory board is giving really good input from the disciplines. We need more expertise to make good decisions and implement those.
You give us those recommendations and we work with that information in executing and operating the system. So the hope here is that you would, if Katherine if you scroll down just a little bit, there are some suggested deadlines in the resolved section, I gave an underline on those to indicate those are just placeholders the September 15 for a short-term plan that would include potentially the items bulleted underneath capital and operating was an amendment that was added in and people felt was more than inherent. It had to be explicitly put into the enabling legislation. They want this group's input when it comes to the capital and operating plans for AMHS. And again, level of detail wise is for this board to determine, I tried to give us here simplified, you know, input as, as far as the capital and operating, but then, the level to which you go certainly is for the board to decide and grapple with.
And also there was another requirement that is explicitly stated that talks about a simplified list of competency gaps of the board as required. That was part of the process that the bill got to. There were earlier performance measures that were part of the initial legislation being considered. Those sections were taken out, but this competency gap was part of having competency on the board that would meet some of the performance measure setting and, working through some of the restructuring and or the changes that would be occurring at AMHS. So it is still stated in the statutory requirements that this competency gap identification is still necessary, in part of that report. So if nothing less pick a timeframe for the short-term plan, what elements of a short-term plan you might be able to, put forward, and what competency gaps, and that would give you something going into this legislative session where we will no doubt be asked by legislators, what has to be provided to DOT and AMHS, and what is DOT and AMHS doing with that? And so we anticipate that the long-term plan I put somewhere later into session because in the short-term plan seems easier to get to, even though there are dependencies from the long-term plan for the short-term plan. So I'll, I'll stop there for one moment and just say, that is again, the purpose of this to put sort of a line in the sand for expectations for this group to set some goals for themselves, as far as timing and what might be in those without being the full request.
Thank you. Ma'am chair. Thank Andy for that update reminder of what we were talking about. I have all the confidence in the world of the department being able to meet the deadlines they need to meet for their budget process, regardless of what the Alaska Marine operation board does or says. And when I get into reading HB 63 word by word, rather than what some comment made in the meeting, it doesn't talk about a timeframe for the Alaska highway service, our board has to come up with recommendations, or what it does see is the short term plan as defined. And I'll use those words as defined in the long-range plan. So in essence, I see it as trying to put together a short-term plan to meet these deadlines that you placed here. And I'll read the words though, as a final and initial short-term plan.
So we're doing a final short-term plan, and an initial short-term plan prior to doing the long-term plan. So I'm having a problem reaching those timeframes in my own mind. Again, I have every confidence in the department being able to meet their own deadlines that they got based upon OMB and what the governor wants. I don't know why we're doing a resolution to say that we will meet a September 15 deadline when maybe we won't. If you read the bill correctly, that is defined in the long-range line. And so I'm just having a difficult time trying to get us out in front of something when we don't necessarily need to be there until we meet our own goals.
This morning, we spent 45 minutes talking about a STIP plan that we need to write a letter on out of a two-hour meeting that we had said, last two meetings let's concentrate on doing something. So I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how we're supposed to get our job done. And we're continually getting into this discussion, go ahead and do the work that you need to do to get your budget to the governor, and ask us for recommendations on it. That's fine. Let's make recommendations, but I don't understand why we're spending all this time putting resolutions together when I don't necessarily think that this board needs to do that. Thank you, Madam chair.
You know, and I'm not gonna argue at all with what Alan said. I mean, when I read the bill, it's definitely very clear that this is DOT's responsibility. These two plans are in consultation with the board. And I get your point about, you know, following a long-term plan that you have this short-term plan. But to me, I mean, we're doing a lot of planning right now. We're making a lot of strategic decisions that have to be made sooner than later to just give lead times on everything. And so to have that shorter-term plan, which we're gonna talk about later, so I don't want to get ahead of the curve here, but it seems critical. And, I think we're gonna do it either way. And like you said, I believe the statute reads that we need have to, and specifically DOT has to, but having you're right. The resolution maybe isn't necessary and just us talking about it is sufficient. For some of these timelines, I would like September 15th is way too soon. That's like a month from now. I mean, it's actually two months from now, but I, I would push that to October one, and I'd consult with James on the second timeline, which we probably already have, but anyway, that's all I got. Thanks.
I just want to note, I think one driving factor for this resolution is at least to come forward and, I perfectly understand Alan, no artificial push to do something ahead of when the board is ready. However, I think one major reason the M tab was sunset and this group was put together through this legislation was people wanted to see input, wanted to see action on a system that I think everyone and DOT has said requires attention, requires more expertise to be brought to the table to make some good decisions. Right? And so I think that this is what that downward pressure on MTA that was one reason to put this forward is to give yourself everybody needs a, a deadline of some kind. And I guess I would ask back if you're not going to produce a plan in 22, are you gonna produce one in 23? If not in 23, are you gonna do 24? You can put, put this a year off, but give yourself a marker so that we can clearly communicate to the legislature and to the public, this board intends to have the following work products available and we can all work towards that. And it doesn't have to be sooner. It can be later, but I think a deadline, I love deadlines, but maybe I'm masochistic in that way. So
Thanks, Shirley. And yeah, to Andy's point, I do think having a deadline is an important part of this process because honestly, we could be doing this for many years because there have been many groups before us that have been having these conversations for many, many years. So picking a deadline and trying to live up to it, I think is important. I have a little bit of heartburn on September 15. I think that we need a little bit more time on the short, and short-term plans. I realize now that we have essentially a straw man plan to look at and react to. I have spoken previously on this issue. I think the chicken and egg discussions, every planning process tends to get into them. You know, I think we could have groups working simultaneously on both the short and the long term for me, what I feel this board should be doing is laying out the performance metrics for the system and then determining whether or not short-term operating plans are sufficient to help meet those.
And then hearing from system management in successive years as to how well the performance metrics have been met and what corrective action is being taken to get closer to the marks that we set. So I'm not as concerned about having a resolution or not. I think we do have to hold ourselves accountable to the legislative process that we've been asked to live up to having some sort of a deadline, whether it's October 1st or October, I, I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent comfortable endorsing a short term plan without having the long-range performance metrics in place. So that's where I land. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks Patrick. And maybe we just table this com conversation on the timing of it all. I think when Alan, when we get move on to the next future agenda items, and we start talking about the short-term plan that we're hoping to have in place, there's quite a bit of work done on it because we've merged basically a lot of the elements from the modernization plan into it. And, and whereas, as you know, where we want to go as a board, I mean, the agency's gonna do this, either way, cuz I feel we're required to in statute. And the timing is what will work out the pro and cons process. So either way, and I'm sure you guys will have plenty of comments as we go, even if we didn't do anything else, but, but I know we will. So I'll just leave with that. Thanks.
It feels like we're hard to ground on this issue and, it's not an either-or question, it's both questions we have to do both of these things. And it seems to me that it, what might be helpful is, you know, that maybe we have some volunteers from the board that agreed to sit down and look at some of the long-term questions in order to be able to evaluate the short-term operating plan. Now the reshaping working group, I put in chat, the report to the governor, and pages 10 through 12 addressed strategy possible approaches to strategy. I'm not saying it's everything that I wanted it to be, but it is at least a starting point. And sometimes it's just helpful to have a straw man so that you can say is this short-term operating plan heading us in the direction of this long-term strategy that we've talked about?
It really talks about the nature of the organization. Having it be you know, achieving operating metrics as well as, as simply just having a zeitgeist, a demeanor of being learning. And so what I, I would suggest, and I'm certainly willing to help with that effort or, or lead that effort is to, even if it's just the outline for what the long term strategy looks like, because I, and when norm and I were meeting with Catherine, we, you know, we discussed this there, isn't currently a document to look to for these, this kind of language. So what I would like to do is propose that we have to do both of these things. So let's do both of these things and let's get started and let's have a straw man to we, we have a straw man to look out for an operating plan. Let's have the straw man for that, the strategy. So we can satisfy ourselves. Not only that we're doing our legislative mandate, but the two things that we're being asked to do are complement and inform one another, of what, the direction is in terms of our advice to the legislature, to the administration, to the system.
Well, I'm gonna suggest that we move forward. And because I think that we probably should have talked about looking at the short-term plan first, and then I think James was also gonna talk a bit about a long-term plan, like an outline as, as one as we've talked about before to see what that looks like. So I'm, I'm gonna go ahead and, and just ask Katherine to just go ahead and move forward and get us into a review of these draft AMHS annual short-term plans.
Yeah. Great. Thanks. And, I'll keep my, try to keep my comments brief. I always say that and usually fail, but there's a lot. I mean, it's an important topic. So long-range plan. We've got a draft RFP that draft RFP is set to come out this next week. We, you know, we're trying to include as, as much as, as we think PO as, as is necessary, but while I'll still, you know, with, with the target of trying to have something quickly without sacrificing quality, right? So our schedule has us getting underway next month in August, there's gonna be ample data collection, traffic modeling, gap analysis, and route and vessel analysis. In the first stage. One of, the main things that we're gonna be working towards is, is level of service. And that's always been one of the hardest things to define, but it's not, a static amount.
It's, it's a range of scenarios. So there's gonna be a cohort from DOT planning. That's gonna be going down to DC later in September. That's gonna be looking specifically at scenario planning at a symposium, but that as, and I'm gonna keep referring back to it because he's right. As deputy commissioner carpenter alluded to, there's a high degree of coordination, that's gonna be required because there are so many things coming to fruition all at the same time, our long-range transportation plan is gonna be wrapping up this fall in winter. That's gonna set high-level transportation policies and actions for the department for the next 20 years. After that concludes, we'll be kicking off our Southeast area plan, our Southwest area plan, and our prince William sound plan. All of these have to coordinate with the long-range plan and the AMHS long-range plan and short-range plan.
These are all connected. It's a, it's a very messy diagram. There's the modernization plan that Catherine and the team are working towards future stages of the AMHS long-range plan are gonna focus on public involvement. That's developing the plan's mission, vision goals, objectives, and values. I think I heard some of that from, Alan, With that's where we're gonna be looking for a lot of input. You know, what, what are the performance metrics? What are the, what are goals and objectives? Those are the things, particularly in the statutory language that need to be included in the long range. And then as Adam chair mentioned, have to be shown in, in that short-range plan, because we're gonna need to be working towards those long-range, long-range vision. It's also gonna include forecasting and conducting scenarios. That scenario analysis work, I mentioned coming up with one or more preferred alternatives.
We're gonna build out a fiscal and investment plan based around a particular alternative. And during the plan development we'll work closely with, you know, all of the other efforts going on. So in, in many instances, we're gonna have teams of, planners and, and AMHS staff and construction staff that will provide a lot of synergy between the various plan developments. Our AMHS long-range plan, for example, also has the Southeast Alaska area planner on it and the Southwest Alaska area planner on it. We had a call earlier this week with Elliot bay and Southeast conference and, and many others just to talk about all of that coordination. And there, the efforts are similar, but not the same Elliot bay will be doing some level of service work as an example, but that's not gonna be the same type of level of service work that we'd be doing in the long-range plan. That's gonna be looking at current conditions, existing conditions. And what is the level of service based on those things? The long-range plan is gonna be looking at scenarios where what Elliot bay may come out with might be one of those possible scenarios.
The other items of note, in terms of long-range plan development, we have gone inter pre-conducted interviews for the AMHS planner. And we do have an offer pending we're. We're very excited. We've got a strong candidate, but that should be hopefully coming to fruition next month. We're hoping. And finally, the anticipated plan scope and cost are, are gonna be near 700 to 800,000 we're reticent to put a, a timestamp in terms of when we expect to be complete until we get all of our offers into a kind of go through and, and negotiate timelines. We do have it broken up into a kind of distinct stages that, we can either provide ahead of time, or you can see when we post the RFP, but there are the typical kinds of long-range efforts, it's information gathering, technical data model analysis, state curler engagement, a public involvement plan and, development of capital improvement plan.
We are going to include, we consulted Katherine and me, as recently as this morning about the idea of the short-range plan, and we have opted to include it in this RFP because, by the time these things are gonna be coming to completion, it's gonna be time next year for the update to the short-range plan. So we can leverage this work that we're doing and combine the modernization plan in some of these other efforts so that we have kind of one contiguous effort of planning. It it's, it's kind of unprecedented all, all of these multifaceted plans all coming together at the same time. So the level of planning in the department to quote Robert ALS is unprecedented, in the amount of AMHS planning that's going on right now. And I'll pause there for any questions.
Thanks, James. I, I have one, actually, it's, it's more of a, a request I guess, and I really appreciate it really sounds like things are, are starting to come together. This has just been an incredible octopus of, of just legs and tentacles everywhere, and trying to figure out which ones are gonna attach to what I know has been very difficult. It would be very helpful, I think, to the board members for us, if you would, if you would give us just a summary of white paper of basically what you just said, we've got so many plans, you have so many plans that are going on and how, you know, who's handling them. What is the scope of work is? Their specific scope of work is so, so we can understand this process that that is that DOT's going to be going through with MHA. And AMHS, that's very, very difficult to answer questions from the public or interested folks when we just have no idea. So, and that, and I think it's all just been coming together recently. So that's, that's understandable, but, but that would be very helpful, the future, and also the scope of work for the longing plan, $708,000. Just if the scope of work done is an RFP out on the street. I don't know
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, James. This is the kind of information I think we need to have if we're going to get into a groove of moving forward. And as we had that list of things you just went through last week, so we could study them a little bit and formulate a bunch of questions for today. When we were getting into this conversation of long-term and short-term, it makes it a lot easier. I'm not quite sure that again, in my reading of HB 63 that we need to have a short-term plan by the end of this year, the department, which is you guys would put together a plan we would advise and recommend based upon what the plan is. And again, we've had this conversation several times that, that our board is not writing a plan. It's the department's responsibility to bring it to us and we can recommend and give advice. Now be one piece of advice prior to writing that thing. We're wide open for that conversation. We meet for two hours supposedly every two weeks, and it's impossible for a board. That's often the Yoders trying to meet for two hours every two weeks to get anything done. And the prime example is today, we spent 45 minutes talking about this tip rather than talking about the long ranger search term plan. And so I, it's very important in my mind that we have this stuff on paper. So we can work with you to try to come up with a solution rather than us, just the day of the meeting, get a bunch of information to try to make a decision. So thank you, Adam chairman you're muted.
Just a basic outline, but we've just been kind of looking forward really starting. It would really help us when we're having this conversation about the short term, because then you can see how it's going to fit into the elements like modernizing the fleet, making the, making the fleet flexible, making sure that, you know, all of the ports are able to handle the new, the modernized fleet, financial issues, maintenance issues, recruitment, payment issues. So, you know, just something for us to look at on paper to start filling in and, and getting the lines together where they need to be. That's, that's important that we start. We see that.
So, I mean, I think the fund fundamental question here is, are we proactive or reactive? And so are we, we are in, in filling our legislative mandate. Are we waiting for the department to produce plans that we react to? Is that how we're seeing our role? And, I'm seeing Rob shake his head. So, so again, I just think that in terms of, health, how the board operates, how we address things, if we're supposed to be planting the tent pole for strategy around the system and identifying how the system serves Alaskan and how well it's doing that job if we're gonna sit around and wait for the department to do those things. Now, in theory in long term, long-term strategy is in place and supporting operating plans are in place. And as a board, we look at system performance and say to management, good job, or why didn't or management comes to us and say, we're performing as you envision, except on these two metrics. And here's why we're not, and here are the resources we need to perform in the way you envision.
In that case, then I think the report that we have to the agency is we have reviewed system operations. The system is, you know, meeting 80% of its performance metrics, but in order to meet the other metrics, here are the things that it needs. And we support their request for those things or something along those lines. Or we don't support the things that they're asking for. We don't understand why they can't operate the way that they envision or that we are so reactive or proactive. It seems to me to be even more important than short-term and long-term and being clear about that. I, if, if you want me to read the staff-produced plans and provide my feedback on them, I'm happy to do that. And I'm happy to sit with everyone as a board and have conversations about those documents and then form some sort of an opinion about them and provide them to the administration and the legislature.
It seems to me that we've been asked to be, to do something a little different. And I think that we need to stand on some of the prior work that has been done because it was done in a deliberative process, just as what we're doing now, as well as in consultation with feedback from communities and users of the system. And so I think, and, and we have other systems that we can look to inform ourselves about how, how strategy is formed, what kinds of metrics can be designed, and that can inform the planning process as it's occurring. These planning processes are going to take a while. They're not gonna happen by October,
So if we wanna keep having meetings like this fine, but I feel like there are some proactive things that we could and perhaps should be doing, but I'm happy to work in whatever fashion the board chooses, but there seems to be a lot of dissatisfaction with where we are at the moment. So leave it there.
It's a lot of work, but Katherine, if you wanna go ahead and just lay it out, but again, and if board members, if can, if we just keep our comments are questions to ourselves for now just in interest of time and then just take the next two weeks and, and really work for this. I think that would be helpful, Catherine.
Yeah. Great. Thank you. So we really do look forward to, you know, in the next couple of weeks, working with the board on some of the contents in here and our intention, especially given the late delivery of the materials was large to help orient you to like the table of contents, big picture structure of this. So you can be thinking about that as you read the materials. And then, and then if desired on the agenda next week, you can start going through some of these sections and gathering input. As you'll see on the table of content, I'm sharing my screen right now. We have it broken down into a couple of main sections versus the capital program. And the second is the operating program. And as deputy commissioner carpenter mentioned in lieu of having an AMHS long-term plan, we do have a statewide cot long-range transportation plan, and that can help really be a guiding light right now, as we create goals and strategic objectives, to make sure we are in alignment with where we are going as a state.
And then as you will have heard James refer to a family of plans, everything rolling up in tying together, you know, we're, we're really working to do that here in this short term plan. And to answer Ellen's question on that, we do refer to this the statewide long range plan in here, but also that as AMAs has its long range plan developed, it can, then this short term plan will be updated so that it is more closely in alignment. So this document here really just captures present day information. What's going on, what's in the step. If you look at, I can pull up some shore facility capital projects, this will be the scope, the schedule, the budget when the budget was last updated. So it pretty rudimentary information, but it's in one place. So anyone that's looking to understand where AMHS is right now and where it's going in the near term can, can look at this and, and be provided with some useful information.
So in your review over the next couple of weeks, you know, take a look at how this layout works for you. We do propose some goals, right? That is in focus areas that line up with dot strategic themes. So there are six of them right here. And you'll likely hear the commissioner speaking about these at some point safety state of good repair resiliency, mobility, sustainability, and economic vitality are pretty common. And this is also what the infrastructure bill funding is scoring capital projects on. So we look at that and then we understand, you know, where is AMHS going? And then how does, what are the focus areas that make sense so that we are in alignment? So you can please take a look at those. And we begin to call out performance metrics, cuz that is something that we will want to include in the short-term plan, but we don't have them developed or fleshed out yet that those will be coming as we move forward.
I think there's a way, and I'm just going to connect with our boards and commissions representative at the state to see what that best, what that can look like, but I'm pretty sure we can post versions kind of iteratively online, at least on the website. And then you have access to that when you're ready to look at it. But perhaps there's a better way. Of course, if we were working on it or collaboratively editing it, we could make it available through teams. For example, I'm not sure publicly how, how that works. So let me check and I'll provide a couple of recommendations. Yeah. Let somebody knows.
Yeah. If I, I mean, it would be great just to see the, the, you know, the live commenting aspect of, of working the document. I mean, I don't know, I'm assuming this is on SharePoint and people are contributing to it all the time through request. And if there's a way to peer into that process, not for decision making, obviously that it would be part of our, our board packet at a future tank, but at least we can see how the document is evolving
And, if there's not a way for that to happen live, Katherine, just make sure that the board is kept up to date. Even if it's two days in a row, we have to say, we've made some changes here, just send them out. So we are. So we're aware of that before, we spent a whole lot of time on a document that might be very different two weeks from now, or a little bit different. Think we're good there, Alan, and then deputy commissioner.
Thank you. I totally agree with what the discussion right there about being able to be up to date with our discussion so that we can have a concrete conversation at the next meeting. We are handicapped meeting every two weeks for two hours is very insufficient time to create an effective board. It's gonna be difficult as we go through this process. And I think we need to make this again, make sure everything, when we get to the meetings, we have a concrete conversation about one or two items again, to try to concentrate on trying what we're doing, because we don't meet that often. How I just wanna make a real quick comment. So, I hope everybody doesn't get me wrong. I'm not negative about what we're doing or what the department's doing in my read of how bill 63, there's nothing in there that says us, that we have to have something this year I'm totally available and willing to sit down and take a look at what the department has to put together on a short timeframe, but they under try to meet those, those timeframes of, of what the Department and what the governor needs.
And I'm happy to sit down and, and go through it all. Again, meeting every two weeks for two hours does not give us the opportunity to try to write something ourselves. That's why I think we have to be somewhat reactive until we come to a firm understanding of where we are going as a board and what we're trying to accomplish. And I've always thought that the initial deliberative paper that was put out on a 20-year plan was the perfect spark for us to start taking up that concept and trying to figure out what is the long term and what we like to see. We wanna see a modern, efficient fleet. If we could start there, we're starting someplace and trying to develop what we need to, to help develop with, with the department what's long term plan. And the short-term plan is so just don't give negative on or think I'm negative on what we're doing. I'm just frustrated that we're not focusing and, and getting to where we need to be
I think I'm not sure a live document, but definitely, updates can be, and maybe even Catherine can, like, I took section five fleet status today and I modified it, and here's in yellow, the updates or something. I don't know how we do it, but to make it real clear changes we've made. And I, and again, I, I hope that as this has evolved, you know, the board or members can say, you know, the shoreside facilities or the vessel investment section, could you, you know, we need to expand this particular topic. Here's how ideal it needs to be. And then, and then the agency can say, oh yeah, you're right. That'd be a great addition. Or you're right. We, we didn't do that. Right. You know, so we work it together or maybe there are sections that are completely missing that we're not thinking about or sections that should be eliminated if it's getting too long.
So we just threw some bones up here with a lot of material that's already out there is the idea. And then let's evolve this thing together to where we feel we need to go as an agency anyway. And that, I, I mean, we're excited about this. Once we, I started thinking about it, this can go out. We let's say we accomplished this in October, by October come session, I'm gonna be pointing to this thing, like crazy, you know, I'm hopeful. It has a lot of really good info and says, here's what we did, why we did it, the board just, we discussed it all together and, and maybe it doesn't have everything, you know, we can at least say we had the conversations and here's what, what came of it. So I'm really excited about it and where the potential it has. So thanks.
Oh, one more thing. I will say, Katherine alluded to the restoration plan, and I don't know if we provided that, but Washington state fairies did it. And once I read it, I fell in love with it. I was like, this is amazing. We need this. Cause it really, and maybe we can provide it, Katherine. It's, it's super informative and, and explains just so very well, the predicament there. I really want that for us so that we people really understand why we're running the ships, we're running, why we're doing this, you know, and, and that, that we actually have goals to get more ships online, to do more service, you know, et cetera. So over there chat provided it in the chat. So that's great. So, alright, thank you. I'll stop talking.
Thank you. I want to make sure I have what the board wants to see at the next meeting, and I believe that's gonna be, we're gonna revisit the short-term plan and the elements I like about, you know, we absolutely know that we have short term immediate priorities and goals that we need to meet and that we also need to make re recommendations on capital and operating in the next year. So that's what we need to be looking at. When we look at this plan, it's not the perfect short-term plan to the perfect finish long-term plan gap, but it's definitely gonna be an element of it. It just, we just have to do it. And then secondly was just possibly, the draft letter. See what the board wants to do with that too. If the board wants to formally chime in and comment on the STIP projects that are being proposed.
So with those, those items, and maybe even go back again to the skeleton of a long-term plan, we now there are at least seven elements that everything we do short term, every planning we do is gonna connect with one of those elements. We can see it at Washington state fairs. We can see it in BC fairies. We know we know what we need. So once we start just looking at those items, I, I think that might help, help the board be a lot more comfortable with providing a short-term plan while we're still a good year away from a long-term long-range plan clearly. So does that meet with the board's approval? And we'll just keep it to that. Yes. Okay.
I do have a question. The board, we do understand that we will be preparing discretionary grant applications, which are due September 9th. So we'll be very actively preparing these materials. And at some point, it may be very beneficial for projects that the board does support to provide a letter of support to go with the application. So I wonder about agenda items, how you would like to see that done so that by September 6th, if there are things that the board would like to support that go into that are being applied for, have these letters. And that's a pretty short amount of time. So I don't know if that's an agenda item for next time, but I may be,
Yeah, maybe, I mean our next on August 5th, and then we would have August 19th and then you would have September 2nd. So if, and I think that the board is probably going to be fairly desirous of following any grant setting opportunities that we have is my guess. But if, if you can bring them to us all, all at once at that meeting, I mean, I don't know if it's better to spread them out and it might be as we, as you get them, send them to the board members and, and just give us some advanced notice that, that this is something that you're looking for support on. So when we get to that meeting, we're already familiar with the grant request and how it connects or ties to the work that we're doing. And then we can just put them on the agenda all at once. When,
So if Katherine, these grant requests, are for both vessel and shoreside? Any, anything that would be related to any FTA money, any federal highways, money, all that, and are the, I think it's important that again, we don't have a prioritization of these projects. And so if we are submitting for projects that are competing for the same pot of money, I think we need to understand that.
Thanks. Ma'am chair. And, and I didn't know if there's so much, I think potential discussion points if maybe the agenda gets narrowed, even like, I'd like to talk about vessel investment or so side, or I don't know, particular sections of the short term plan and we segmented over multiple meetings, or I don't, I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there with discussion or thought,
Okay. For the record, Cynthia did let us know that she would not be able to call into the meeting this afternoon. So she is excused and we have just a phone number down at the bottom. Last four digits 5, 2 8 1, I think 5, 2 0 1, no captain page. Okay. Well we do have a quorum and briefly hopefully captain page will able to be called in, but he was chosen by board president cheki to fill the seat that Dave arts was unable to fill. And captain page comes to us with a lifetime of experience in Alaskan waters, the Marine maritime industry, both in operations, finances, planning. He, he, he really has the, a great deal of experience that's gonna help. I do believe, and I've worked with him before on other projects and his, his planning experience is, is second to now when it comes to these issues. So it'll be good to see him on board and hopefully we'll have him at that next, the next meeting. So the first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of the July 1st meeting
Second by Allen. Are there any comments or needs for clarification on the minutes? No, no clarifications. And, and I agree. I think the minutes can be far more condensed as you did this time, Katherine, instead of all that work of, of trying to work for words, since everything is archived and you did get the critical information from the meeting in there. So, so I think that that was a good change. So thank you for feedback.
So if there's no object or is there any objection to the approval of the minutes of the July 1st and hearing them, we will consider those adopted for reports of the board share today? Basically, I just wanted to report that captain ed page did accept the seat and will be sitting in as a board member. And I think that's gonna be a really helpful addition and just really, I've just spent the last better part of the last two weeks, rereading going over our past information, past presentations, past questions and past studies to see where we to kind of see where we are. And I, I would really encourage the other board members to that too, when you get the time, maybe this weekend or in the evenings, it's very helpful. And, and I do feel that in, in our own slow little way we are moving forward. So that was, those are my only comments. So now if there are any reports on the members, please just remember to raise your hand and, oh, I saw falls first.
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Okay. Thank you. Hello everybody. My name's Kim Bo and I just wanted to join the conversation today. I grew up in Juno, Alaska, and I lived, I lived in Douglas and I, the reason I wanted to make sure to join today and hopefully future discussions as well as was because I was just saddened to hear about the loss of the Malisa recently. And it made me realize how it feels to me like how vulnerable we are to lose these special ships that we've got. And I just wanted to talk to you and kind of urge you to consider people like me or other people who love those ships and future generations experiences that people may have on these ships, like the Columbia and consider other things like cultural ramifications. I mean, these ships are part of the culture of Southeast Alaska, and they've been there for a long time.
So they mean a lot to people like me. And I imagine I'm not the only one from all the lifetime of experience I've had on these ships. And so I just wanted, I know the discussions are, are the public comments are coming before we hear what your discussions are. So I don't really know how to address something. I don't know that's coming up yet, but I just wanted, I wondered about how the decision decisions are made to, to sell a ship and to let it go because that can't be undone and we can't get that s**t back. It's permanent. I was wondering what the considerations are. And I was thinking about other things. Other types of architectural works of art that are preserved like buildings made by Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, they're important and we need to preserve them. And I thought, you know, this is the, it is a public highway. And how are, you know, what would be the cost of putting in a road that would be very expensive. So when you say, well, it's too expensive to keep this ship going. It might not really be, if you change your way of thinking and think about what the cost would be to put in a highway in Southeast Alaska.
Hey, thank you, Kenny. And if you would go to the am ho website and you can Google back, I'm trying to think of when we talked about this March, April, may, March, April, the manless Spanish. She had been tied up for a couple years already out of use at least a year. And you, you can, you can read about the decision making and, and how it was kept actually in state for kind of some really neat culture on educational reasons by the purchasers. But thanks for joining us. And, and there's just a ton of information on that website. That'll help
One example of a metric is I put in here on the state of good repair and we can have a state of good repairs for, because of our shore facility condition surveys. So we have status updates of all of our facilities and they're based out of a rating of nine. So again, this is high level placeholder information, but we can look at compiling what we have providing a baseline and then begin to make recommendations for where we want to go to keep things in alignment, moving forward. So with that, to keep it at five minutes, those are just some things to perhaps pay attention to we line out and I don't wanna make people busy, but we have a pretty detailed table about capital projects, as we're aware of them that are needed and, and estimated costs affiliated with these capital projects. And it's broken down by design and construction, both on the capital side and on, on the fleet, the complete side and the short facility side.
Lastly, you mentioned, you heard deputy commissioner mention that we are coming out with our winter schedule. That's not included here yet. It's gonna be out for public comment in August. And so when that is available, we'll be adding that here as well. Another component to this along with the winter schedule will be a service restoration plan. If you've seen Washington state Faires has something very similar to this. We wanna acknowledge that we are running at a reduced level of service and we want to improve that as the fleet and as crew become available. So we're lining out that strategy for what that looks like as resources become available. How does that impact and how can we improve service? So people know what to expect and we can increase our communications. Why she state fairs actually does this. They update it once a week. So that that's a component of this. We have a lot more, we can talk about this at the next meeting, if it, the board wishes to put this on the agenda and you know, meanwhile, as you read, read into it, our team can provide you with some answers. Thank you. I could answer questions.
Thanks, Julie. It's, it's helpful to walk through this again. It, it came in Wednesday evening and work schedule just did not allow a dive into it yesterday or this morning in preparation for, for the meeting. So what I wanna say is of course, if, if the strategic direction is going to be set by the funding source through I Ija is what I understood Catherine to say. You know, I think that's, you know, certainly understandable in terms of taking that approach. I, as so long as it meets the standards that Alaskans expect of the system. And so I, I do want to, I want, I think, I always think it's wrong to chase the money. It's better to have the plan that you intend to have and align the funding opportunities with that for the next meeting. Yes, of course. We'd like to look at this, but I just wanna say that between now and the next meeting, this document is likely to change substantially. And so the question is how do we, as board members stay on top of that rather than having a static document to look at, is there a way to have the living document that we can look at on a real time basis? If is if it's available in that way? I don't know that I'm gonna invest too much time in a static document that you guys are continuing to evolve as you should, but I, I, I'm not sure I should invest too much time in, in the document as it exists today. Thank you.
Thanks. Juano before I go to you a can I just ask Catherine, if, do you understand what Juana's looking for and is there a way to either allow us into live documents, see changes on a daily basis if we choose or for you to make sure that the board is updated with, with changes as they occur?
And maybe I can touch base then with the board members and after week one and see if there's specifics where you have a lot of extra questions, and those would be really helpful to know in a, we can advance get those to Catherine. And so she and the AMHS crew can try to get answers for them before the meeting one,
Just what the commissioner asked. I agree again, because of the short timeframes, we're gonna be working on to try to do some of this stuff instead of trying to do it all and, and, and get it together. We're dealing with the department spending a million dollars to, to get a plan written. And we, we can't just rush into the thing. So we need the priorities set by the department, what they need to be able to present their stuff to the, to legislature and the governor OMB. We don't have time to sit down and, and figure out what those priorities are at this point in time. Cuz we're gonna be sitting here and discussing a short term or long term plan, but if you've got priorities, please present them as priorities and, and show us the way.
And I just would like to say I'm at the meeting that we had with the informational meeting that a couple of us had with Catherine, what I really would like to see, and don't really feel that I have my arms fully around is the key timelines and dates for full operational capacity of the ACF. And I, I know that that information exists across numerous documents, but what I would like to see and have a better grasp on is, so for example, when the questions come a about the retirement of the LATI and the Aurora, that we can see what the service implications are for communities. And right now, I, I, I feel like we're being asked to judge some of those things on a incremental basis, a one off basis, as opposed understanding the, the implications of the decisions across other key investments. So I, I feel that the, the condition, the status of the ACF has severely hampered the system and, and created reductions in service to Alaskans and Alaska communities. And I feel that we need to prioritize all of the decisions that are necessary to get those two vessels up to full operational capacity.
I agree. And that's part of the short term planned elements that, that are provided in this document. One of those priorities and goals that we know we need to achieve sooner than later. So Rob, I'm sorry. You had your hand up. No, you didn't. Okay. Okay. Well we're a little past time. I don't know, Catherine, if you have any members of the public online who have been waiting to, to chime it on public comment, if you do, you would take them. If not, not, we will look promotion.
Yeah. We definitely have a considerable number of people that have been listening to the meeting. If anybody is interested in providing a brief comment, as we close, please press star three and I'll give it a minute while I navigate to that. Again, you hit star three on your phone this time. I do not see any one interested in providing comments.
Okay. Well, if we're closing then norm, I hope you continue to feel better and, and, and heal up from COVID and good to see you sitting there today. And thank you. Okay. Any last comments from if I continue to recover as like I am I, yeah, so I'm glad. Okay. If there no further comments, we're gonna meet back on August 5th and I wanna entertain a motion please.
Thanks, Matt chair. You know, I guess I go back to that partnership thing, you know, we're, we, the agency is being proactive. We, we feel we have to, and, and we feel this board is one of our partners and, and, you know, I think, well, I don't want to jump ahead again. This what Katherine has on the screen here is this, what we're hoping can be the start of our short term planning effort by taking the modernization plan, which I know the board was very much, you know, it's a great, great document from a few years ago, a lot of great stuff. And we, we feel incorporating that into this statu sort required effort is ideal. And, and us all working through this lot of things in here that we would let you know, the operating capital budget requirements that we have to put forth with your, your, the board's consultation, our operating plans, we're working on our operating plans right now for, for this winter and next summer, some really important decision making going on. And, and again, want partnership want, want the effort together? I think we're getting there, we're just getting there in a slow way at this meeting.
Okay. Thank you as well. We don't have time to go through this whole plan today. I don't even know if all the board members have read through it, the whole thing receiving it on Wednesday afternoon. I have. And I like it. I think it makes sense. I think it brings up a lot of the concerns and challenges that we've talked about in the last several months. And, and I think it's worth taking a really a, a deep hard look at going back to those conversations, but that that's not, it's just not gonna happen today. So what I would like to maybe recommend is that take the time, read through the purpose, the plan, all the, the different elements of it. And let's come back at our next meeting and focus on this plan and focus on how the elements of the short term plan absolutely do line up with what we know is important for elements, important elements of the long range plan, and just keep it at that. And in the meantime, if we can get some of the information that's pending, like on the fair structures and dynamic pricing and things like that, just continue the information to the board. That would be very helpful. But I, I, I feel like we're kind of stuck as well. And I'd like to, I'd like for us to be unstuck Alan first, then deputy Kushner.
Yeah. I, I have not had chance. I, I browsed it real quickly, but I have not had chance to read it in depth. One of the questions I would have as we go through trying to set this up is how it, how we would apply to a long range plan. And I don't know, again, without reading it, whether there's any reference in there and maybe there is, but if, if we're going continue this track, then we need to have a refer it, be able to refer it back to what the long range plans going to be. And so just that comment on it.
Oh, thanks. Manam chair. And I, I, to Allen's point right there, one of the things, and James can probably speak to this. I know Catherine, can we have some principles that are guiding our long range plan that we we've actually put in here? I will say this, and I don't want to, this is extremely draft. We just started throwing this together, conceptually pulling in a modernization draft concepts and adding some things that we thought would be, you know, good additions. There's a lot of placeholders in here that, that are just literally this operating budget. I mean, that's it. So can Catherine just walk through conceptually real quick, what it is in like five minutes, just to kind of lay out how it ties to what we're thinking about on operating principles and how it ties theoretically into a long range, long range planning effort. Would that be okay?
Right. So the comment period is, is 30 days. It public noticed, I believe just this past week. So we're one in federal highways. Once the comment period finals, there's a couple of additional steps and then both FHWA and FTA have to approve our estimate is that we're looking around mid August, August 15 to August 24 for, to be approved and published.
Okay, great. So this is, you know, just a kind of a segue into talking about the, the notice of funding opportunities that have come out on the fairies. But, you know, for one of the things that that we're tackling with is just, is just capacity. And we need to, as deputy commissioner carpenter mentioned, you know, there's a lot of emphasis on increased partnerships, working with stakeholders, more related unrelated, but within this purview is, is the idea of regional planning organizations and regional transportation planning organizations. And that's something that we're heavily pursuing just as an informational update to this board. We have signed an MOA with Alaska municipal league that is, and they're, we're working with NIS and I, and, and Catherine are forming inter just an Len teams to put a lot of emphasis on, on these grants. We are standing up a grants clearing house, and really it's gonna be a project intake clearing house.
This is gonna be web based map based. I think we're going through certification of that within the next week. You'll see that roll out with the new community transportation program as a start, but basically it's a way for communities to go out, drop a pin on a map, give us their project. And it's all interactive and very visible. It'll also hold and retain past funding opportunities. Part of this will exist on the AML website, the AK federal funding.org that they already have a very good and robust public facing website that shows all these opportunities, right? So the next step is actually creating a central repository. So that, that's what we're doing. We're creating this shared system, which is, you know, something that, that hasn't really been done before. So it's pretty exciting. So hopefully we'll be able to showcase that within the next month or two.
Well, will D O T then working with the AML is great, you know, has a very large staff. And he, he is, he's got quite a lot of experience. He's also got Southeast conference. You've got KPE for the Kenai peninsula and south central and then Swank for, for the Western. So those, those three economic development organizations that are established and, and already doing a lot of this work on behalf of their communities are all within the Alaska Marine highway system. As a matter of fact, they encompass the entire system. So I think it would be very smart and helpful to just put them on a stakeholder's list when this information is, is going out when looking for information, you know, if Neil wants to know something about Southeast, he will almost always call me. So that's helpful, but it'd be nice to be in the loop. And I, and I think that would be a lot more helpful. I just like to suggest that.
Thank you. Thank you for being the bear of bad news, but you did it very nicely. Okay. Board will go ahead and continue onward then. And we're gonna pick up an item under old business that we had tabled at the last meeting, and that was am ho HB 63 deadlines for fiscal year 2022, which we're out of now. But Katherine, do you wanna take that or just turn that over to Andy?
Thank you, Catherine. And thank you, Matt gentlemen, again for this group, Andy mills, or for the public legislative liaison for the department of transportation and public facilities. So the, the, yeah, the calendar year 22, which we're still in is the, the resolution that was drafted and available for, for your review. As stated last meeting was, was really to put before the group, the consideration of what would you want to tell the legislature and the public that you can try and, and buy it off. Right. And rather than reiterating what I did last meeting in full Madam chair, when I might look for what, what I could supplement or provide to the committee at this time.
Yes. Thank you. And I see Catherine's pulling it up for folks to be able to read again. I, I think the, the thrust of this draft resolution for the committee to consider was twofold. One to, to bear in mind the statutory responsibilities that are the shalls, and that's really what you look for in legislative languages. What, what is the shall? What, what must you do by the, the enabling statutes? And so a reminder of house bill 63, which essentially sunset the, the M tab of the Marine transportation advisory board and created this am ho group with a different composition in a, a, a renewed purpose. It gave them the short term and long term. It gave those two goals. And again, as Alan had said, last meeting, you know, there's a difficulty in accomplishing the short term without having that long term established. And so these nested activities are difficult, certainly to get your arms around.
I, I did wanna reiterate one important point from last time that for some boards, there are shorter terms and this, and in its drafting contemplated members who are six years far longer than some boards. And that was a, a very straight acknowledgement of how much you have to grapple with information wise, how much they wanted the competency of the board to build over time. And, and also naturally in committee, it was stated to insulate the board from changing so frequently, right? And so with all those in mind, you have large tasks ahead of you, but in onboarding this resolution seeks to give this board the opportunity to state to the legislature and the public that you acknowledge that you have these, the two requirements again in Alaska statute, 19 65 0 1 11, you have two requirements, your short term, and your comprehensive long term plans. And there are deadlines established.
Thanks, Paul. I think that's definitely what, what is, is clear is that, and I felt the same way September 15th is too much of a push because there are still some questions there, but you know, we haven't yet looked at the modernization plan update, which, which is now the abstract or, or the start of the short term plan. And we all know sitting here that there are immediate needs that have to be taken into consideration this next legislative session budget session. They just have to, for us to continue with our work. So, so I'm, I'm comfortable with that frankly, and having with the, the short term plan that we have, but to me, October 15th really gives us that time to, to make sure of, of what it is that we're doing and that we're comfortable with it as we're gonna be, cuz we're kind of stuck with the language in this statute, you know, we're kind of stuck and, and we do need to provide something.
So, you know, I would, I would suggest first and foremost that if the board wants to adopt a resolution or, or just, just, you know, make it formal now that it would be on October 15th annually provided for short term plans because summers are just too crazy. We just, you just can't commence that much. And, and even maybe backing up the March initial, comprehensive long-term plan back that up, there's just so many different planning elements going on right now. And that's also during the legislative session and things are gonna be crazy for D O T and folks. And, and now that AMHS is on a calendar year, you know, maybe it makes sense to move that back into like may and, and maybe with just with those two changes with those two changes to the timeline, we might be a lot more comfortable looking at a short term plan as it's gonna be presented if, if there's, if there's, if that's an okay timeline for folks, particularly to October 15th, would I'll go Rob first and then Alan,
Right. Thank you again. I don't think we need a resolution do this. We haven't even had a conversation about what our goal is. We haven't had a conversation about a deciding anything about the, the modernization plan that was presented to us to start with. If we could start there, put together an idea exactly where we want, or basically where we want to go, then it would make sense to sit down and have a conversation about how it's all gonna come together. We haven't had those conversation. All these meetings we've been having are all informational. And now all of a sudden we have a, we have a, a resolution to set timeframes for something we haven't even discussed. So I'm, I'm not in favor of setting a timeframe at this point in time until we actually set what our goals are for the lo for the long term plan and then incorporate short term into an advocate going. But until we get to that point of deciding where we're going, I'm not in favor of setting any goals or timeframes at all,
Excel, deputy commissioner, did you have something? No. Okay. If, if the board is not ready for a resolution now I still do believe that we should give ourselves a timeline. We have to, we have to have things to en be into the governor's office well before, and, and I, and we can do it. I know that there's just been a tremendous learning curve going on with gathering this information, but it's really, I think, started to coalesce in a definitely in a short term sense in our, our last probably three or four, our three or four meetings. And at some point as a board, we I'm gonna have to set, you know, some rules of when we, we are gonna be, be providing information to the legislature, to the public at some point. But if we're not ready to do it now, I understand that. However, I, I really think that we, we need to stick with, you know, a timeline like October 15th, that we would have that short term for the current, for the next budget that we're asking for capital in operating done. Rob.
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