City of Kenai Mayor Brian Gabriel and City Manager Paul Ostrander were the featured guests at Wednesday’s Kenai Chamber Business Luncheon from the Visitor and Cultural Center. The two discussed the State of the City, which included priorities, anticipated challenges, and a roadmap for the future including plans, goals and impacts that provide residents and businesses with important information to strengthen the local economy.
Mayor Gabriel spoke to KSRM, “Our goal is to keep the city rolling as normal as possible, provide the services that our citizens and residents expect. Also, we’ve got the bluff erosion project that’s moving forward, we’re hoping to have a shovel ready plan set here in about a year. Then, we’ll work towards getting the funding for that. All the things that we have been working, we’ll continue to work on. Also providing business opportunities within the city. Kenai is very important to the administration and council. Trying to go back to business as usual is going to be our main goal and we’re getting there. I think our response to the pandemic has been pretty good. We’ve been able to provide the services as our residents expect, but also provide recreational opportunities, keeping our ice rink open, getting our library reopened, all of those things with a weary eye towards the near future.”
Gabriel talked about Wednesday’s presentation saying the city’s response to the pandemic was cautious but measured, “One barometer of this city is that it has sales tax, that’s a pretty quick indicator if you look at it year over year, quarter over quarter and see how you’re doing. I know last year, when administration was putting the budget together, there was a lot of uncertainty there regarding the lockdowns and the mandates from the governor and reduced travel. It sort of injected a little bit of uncertainty of where the budget would come out and how we should project for that, but there’s a lot of positive news there.”
During a question and answer session portion of the presentation, City Manager Ostrander said that Kenai is taking a conservative approach to the budget citing pandemic uncertainty with the budget projections moving forward, but expects nominal growth over the next year.
If you missed the presentation, you can view it here:
