Council approves resolutions and cold
storage facility lease agreement
Mike Tozzo
January 19, 2006.
The City Council met Tuesday night to make the second reading of Ordinance #895: Zoning Map Amendment changing 310 Hungerford Hill Road from a mobile home park to industrial, discuss resolution #1788, a resolution setting fiscal policy on the expenditure of raw fish tax proceeds and the consideration of the final lease agreement with Petersburg Economic Development Council on the cold storage facility.
According to a letter written by Paul D. Prevatt, owner of the 310 Hungerford Hill Road property, he has requested a zoning change from trailer park conditional use to industrial use. In the letter Prevatt notes that the lot has been used as an auto wrecking yard for over 22 years and has shown the need for this change by its performance and longevity of being the public service of car removal for private citizens and providing parts for others to keep their cars safe and legal. Ordinance #895 passed unanimously in its second reading without any discussion from the council.
According to resolution #1788, the Harbor and Port Facilities Fund has experienced considerable loss in operating fund balance over the past several years and has depleted all reserves. “This resolution would put a cap on the amount of raw fish tax the city utilizes and anything over that will go to the harbor,” said Mayor Ted Smith. The resolution states that General Fund reserves have been used to subsidize the operating budget of the harbors and port for several years and it is estimated at the close of fiscal year 05/06 that up to $500,000 of General Fund reserves will have been expended over recent years on harbor and port facilities. “Anything over $500,000 goes first to pay off the debt to the General Fund and second will be set aside for replacement of harbor and port facilities,” said Dennis Lewis, City Council member. This resolution also passed unanimously by the council.
Councilor Anderson motioned to authorize the City Manager to enter into a Tidelands Lease Agreement with the Petersburg Economic Development Council for a Cold Storage/Freight Consolidation Facility. Councilor Bill Tremblay, brought up the issue of how close the storage facility location is to Mitkof Highway. “I would like to address the public safety council as to some traffic considerations of the location and the traffic pulling out of the driveways there.” PEDC coordinator, Eric Phillips submitted a projected construction timetable for the cold storage facility. According to the timetable, construction is scheduled to begin on February 1 and the facility should be 100% complete by July 15.
Councilor Dan Hickman encouraged Phillips to come up with a definite explanation and keep repeating it to the public, because there are a whole bunch of people out there that don’t understand what can be done with this cold storage and what it means. “There is so much misinformation running around, make sure people understand what it’s going to do,” said Hickman. Phillips said PEDC will be forming a sub-committee that will establish the operating policy of the project over the next several months as it starts taking shape. “There will definitely be an informational campaign to expose to people exactly what you can and cannot do, because I run across people that want to come in and fillet their fish and I have to say no that’s not going to happen,” said Phillips. The final lease agreement for the cold storage facility was approved unanimously by the council.