The Soldotna City Council passed an ordinance that would increase revenues and appropriations by $3,611 in the general fund for forfeited property. The money is due to forfeitures in criminal cases, which were recently adjudicated, and the money was forfeited to the Soldotna Police Department.
Stephanie Queen, Soldotna City Manager, said that the Police Department would like to utilize those funds to purchase magazine pouches, weapons lights, and mount new sighting systems on existing duty pistols:
“There’s a follow up memo dated on the 18th of January from interim Chief Lieutenant Kant who relooked at the intended or the proposed use of these funds and had suggested that we amend that and use them in a slightly different way. We will be requesting from the administration a potential amendment to the ordinance, specifically just to identify some different intended uses. Lt. Kant feels that purchasing magazine pouches, weapons lights and new mounting systems for our duty pistols would be a more appropriate use of the funds if the council appropriates and accepts them. it doesn’t impact the account that the funding would be appropriated into it’s just that we wanted to clearly articulate our updated proposed use of those funds. Receiving money that has been forfeited happens at very irregular intervals, but it is our standard practice to bring forward an ordinance and identify intended uses within the police department. That is consistent with how the administration has approached forfeiture of assets or cash in the past.”
The ordinance passed as amended.