An action proposed during Wednesday night’s Kenai City Council meeting aimed to allow the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Kenai to receive a special use permit for temporary use of the second floor of the Alaska Regional Fire Training Facility. The purpose was to give them more opportunity to serve kids of the Kenai after-school.
City Manager Paul Ostrander explains that Beacon has control of most of the building, but that this action would allow the Boys & Girls Club to safely utilize space in the building without getting in Beacon’s way: “There’s a certain portion of the facility that isn’t part of the Beacon lease. The 3,800 square feet we’re talking about here, Beacon doesn’t have any interest in at all. So, this 3,800 square feet could be used by the Boys & Girls Club and it would not impact Beacon’s operations at all.”
Mike Navarre said that this is not the only building where the Boys & Girls Club is attempting to gain space: “This isn’t the only place Boys & Girls Club is doing this. I think they’re doing it at Mountain View. So, they’re reacting to the situation of the virus and how best to engage kids.”
Rachel Chaffee, Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Kenai Peninsula, discussed the current restrictions they have regarding students and the locations they are allowed to work with: “The current status of COVID-19 requires us to only have youth in that school at that school. We can’t import other youth from other schools to Aurora Borealis, for example. Aurora Borealis has historically housed Kaleidoscope, K-Beach Elementary, Mountain View Elementary, and Aurora Borealis students, and the sixth graders from Kenai Middle. With COVID-19, aside from the Aurora Borealis and Mountain View schools, which have accommodated us, we don’t have any other location for those youth. Setting up our mitigation plan, in a COVID environment, we can only serve 40. With 3,800 square feet in a non-COVID environment, we could serve so many more than that. More than double. 80 would be a very comfortable number of youth that could fit in that space up there.”
She said in a COVID-19 environment, they have restrictions. Utilizing this building could allow up to 20 students per-room, separating them by school in the event of a COVID outbreak at a school, allowing them to continue their services when school buildings are closed.
She also offered details on how often the building would be utilized: “It would be five days a week for the duration of the school year, closed for holidays. When schools are open, after-school programming, and when schools are closed, it would be a full day of programming for the youth.”
The special use permit was moved to the council’s consent agenda and was thereby passed unanimously.
