The City of Seward discussed Monday night what to do with the $1 million donation from Norwegian Cruise Lines. On May 4th, Norwegian Cruise Lines announced their intention to donate $1,000,000 to several communities in coastal Alaska to give back to those communities that will not be hosting cruise ships during the 2021 sailing season. In discussions with City Administration, Norwegian Cruise Lines stated that their objective is to have locally elected officials, i.e. City Council, determine how best to use those funds.
Seward City Clerk, Brenda Ballou, tells KSRM what came out of that Monday night City Council work session:
“It’s TBD (to be determined) still. There were lots of ideas that were discussed. A lot of different priorities and initiatives and the bottom line is Administration, the City Manager’s office will come back to Council with some more detailed plans for options and then Council will take a look at that and then decide which direction to go. Nothing was actually decided, just a couple of initiatives like what would it look like if we put the money into a housing development. What would it look like if we put half the money into a developer reimbursement program. What would it look like if half the money went into the childcare initiative. So, it’s still a lot of options being considered.”
There is no firm date on the receipt of the funds, but it likely will take place over the next 60 days. According to the meeting, there are four prospects being considered, which includes downtown and Port Avenue beautification program, funding the developer incentive and reimbursement program with the targeted intent of assisting residential development, purchasing a building for a childcare startup facility and/or sidewalk repairs.
Ballou says that if Council wants to focus on one of the plans, a resolution will have to come before council to ultimately approve what’s decided on the path forward with the funding.
Click here to view the Seward City Council Work Session on the options for public uses for the $1 million received from Norwegian Cruise Lines.
Below is the packet from the work session:
210607 WS ePacket - NCL Funds