The mayor of Kenai, Brian Gabriel delivered the fifth, state of the city report at Wednesday’s Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Kenai.
Mayor Gabriel says overall that the City of Kenai is quote “Doing pretty well.” Gabriel explained that the sales tax is a barometer of the fiscal health of the city.
During the presentation, Gabriel outlined funding plans for the bluff erosion project;
“We’re very close, we’ve gotten, thanks to Senator Murkowski, we got about a $28 million from the federal government. All total, well six and a half million through Dunleavy administration just last year. Prior to that another around, four million with previous administrations going back to 2010 that allowed us to start doing land acquisition land acquisitions and those sorts of things. Another thing we did is the city put money forward is as part of our cost share to start to design work to be proactive there. So, yes as Terry (Eubank) said we’re hoping to see rock at the base of the bluff by 2024.”
Gabriel also discussed the opening of the city dog park;
“We are planning on having a grand opening around July on that. So, yes I’m looking forward to that I think it’ll be a great asset to the community. One that’s a bit of a journey to get to but I think it’ll be it’ll be great. And that was one thing that Pat and I wanted to talked about was to make sure that this was something that you know was a good quality project for the folks of the of the community and out outlying areas.”
Mayor Gabriel outlined plans for the upcoming dipnet season;
“It’s an event that you know involves all of our city departments, even down to our finance department. But certainly our public works department, parks and rec. And so we’re hiring right now we’re trying to get the ball right sort of this annual. You know I gotta, I will say there are studies that we’ve been doing this long enough. Where there’s not a lot of surprises as we prep to get ready for it. And mostly we’ll get folks down here. And one of the things we do part of that is we have an expenditure related to prepping for that you know getting the fee shacks up getting the ball launch ready and the North Beach and then that’s based on a projection of so many people coming in and paying for a lot of people think that we make a bunch of money off of the dipnet that fishery and in actuality it comes out if you average it out close to revenue neutral.”
Gabriel also revealed that a new ladder truck is coming to the city of Kenai fire department.
