The City of Kenai issued a Disaster Emergency Declaration on March 18, which was subsequently extended by the City Council for 90 days. It was set to expire on September 15. Based on the continued impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the City of Kenai approved an extension until December 31 during their Wednesday night City Council meeting.
City Manager Paul Ostrander discussed what this means, as an extension of what has been happening since the pandemic began: “This does extend the executive powers that were granted to me back in March. It is a component of this, but since I believe April, I haven’t utilized that power. I don’t anticipate doing it because most of the thing we’re doing, although they’re continuing to work through COVID-related emergency issues, consistently we’ve been able to generally take to the council.”
He said the most important reason to extend the declaration is to allow the city to continue to utilize CARES Act money: “This extends our ability to utilize federal grant funds and, in particular, it allows us to continue to use CARES Act dollars to cover payroll expenses for our first responders. Without the emergency declaration, we wouldn’t be able to do that. So in my opinion, that’s probably the most important reason to extend this. It’s why we’re extending this so that the date, December 31, coincides with the date that the CARES Act funds need to be spent.”
The resolution was adopted with unanimous consent.
Resolution 3158-2020 subsequently was presented before the council, which authorized the acceptance of $2,675,524 in CARES Act pass-through grants to assist in the response to the COVID-19 emergency.
It also passed with unanimous consent.
On Tuesday, the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly also passed a resolution to extend their emergency declaration.