The Cordova Times - Opinion: Mayor's minute

Posted 02/12/2012

by Jim Kallander, mayor - for the Cordova Times

I have been mayor now for almost two years and on the city council for four years before that. City government has changed a lot during my time volunteering. One big change is the fishing industry. The value of high-quality wild seafood has increased dramatically. In 2010, Cordova ranked 8th in the nation by volume and 5th in the nation by value for all fishing ports. Our city government has been able to help grow our economy through land sales and development, which has been encouraged through a responsive permitting process and a generally pro-business, pro-growth policy. The growing economy has led to increasing sales tax revenue as well as fish tax revenue. The city council has managed to hold down the growth of government while lowering property taxes in an effort to lower the cost of living for year-round residents.

We have been well positioned, for a small town, while the rest of the nation suffers through a recession and high unemployment rates. However, the cost of living in Cordova remains very high. We have among the highest electricity and fuel prices of any modern coastal town in Alaska. These high costs get built into everything we purchase or sell locally. The cost of a gallon of milk, a sack of nails, fish prices—everything is affected by our local energy cost.

For the past four years, the city council has been negotiating with AIGCO, a company that wants to provide lower-cost energy, propane, otherwise called synthetic natural gas. It has taken many years to come to terms, because AIGCO first wanted the city to help fund the development of the gas utility. In looking out for the community’s best interest, the city council was supportive of a new business coming to town but refused to become financially involved. Now AIGCO has secured private funding and is ready to begin construction. After extensive review by city council and countless public meetings, the city negotiated to sell some tidal flats north of the shipyard and let AIGCO mine rock from the quarry by the burn pit at no cost. Council felt this was a good deal; we gain filled flat ground and a new business that will provide a cleaner alternative to diesel at potentially a lower cost. Additionally, we gain more flat ground at the quarry by the burn pit, which may be further developed in the future.

There are some folks in town who oppose the whole project. Some oppose filling any more land in Cordova and have wanted to stop this project from the beginning. The “no more fill” argument did not get a lot of traction, so the same folks now argue that AIGCO is not a company we should do business with for a multitude of reasons. The folks who oppose this project passed around a petition to have the sale of land to AIGCO placed as a referendum in the coming election in March. As I said earlier, your city council has been working for several years to come to terms with AIGCO, and we have. AIGCO has agreed to our terms and our performance measures. I feel comfortable selling AIGCO the land they have asked for, and I feel comfortable that we have a good chance AIGCO will perform on their agreement with the city. However, if they do not, we have included a strong performance provision in the agreement so that the city will not be hurt financially and we will end up with our land back.

The potential benefit to our city greatly outweighs both the risk and the loss of a few acres of tidal flat. Interestingly, I just became aware that the city council of Seward just directed their staff to explore ways to bring gas to their community; they are very interested in what we are doing. This project is good for Cordova. Talk to your friends and neighbors and ask them to support the city’s sale to AIGCO. We should move forward with this project and I ask for your support.

Jim Kallander, mayor

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