The Kenai City Council passed an ordinance that would accept and appropriate a grant from the State of Alaska, Department of Education and Early Development for the purchase of library books for the Kenai Community Library. The Library was awarded an annual Public Library Assistance Grant by the State of Alaska in the amount of $7,000 for the purchase of library books.
Councilman Henry Knackstedt:
“I’d just like to say that this maybe one of the revolving grants that the library gets, but almost every meeting there seems to be another grant that comes up and that they’ve applied for and they’ve done the work and then, of course, they have to account for all the stipulations and everything. I do appreciate the work that the library is doing to bring these forward to us.”
Councilwoman Teea Winger:
“I, too, want to say to Katja Wolfe (Library Director), you guys are doing a great job over there. I appreciate all the hard work from your staff. The programs they’ve continued to execute and even through the COVID, which has been kind of hard for a lot of people to navigate and move to online. I just want to say you guys are doing a great job. I appreciate you guys. I just want to pass that off to your employees as well.”
Katja Wolfe, the Library Director, completes an application each year in order to receive those funds. Certain minimum standards need to be met in order to receive that grant. That includes reporting requirements on expenditures and collection statistics, the number of hours the library is open to the public, minimum educational requirements for the Library Director and continuing education requirements.
Ordinance No. 3236-2021 unanimously passed the Kenai City Council.