The cookies and coffee were plentiful at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center on Thursday. That’s where the Kenai City Council and Kenaitze Indian Tribal Council convened for their third annual joint work session to review initiatives impacting their shared constituencies.
“I look forward to this every year,” opened Kenai Mayor Brian Gabriel. “It’s nice to see all of these items that we get to sort of bring up.
Tribal Council Chair Bernadine Atchison says cooperation between the city and tribe is important.
“I really believe that when we do things together, it's better, you know?” she said. “It’s helping everybody.”
Over roughly an hour and a half, the tribe and city recapped their work on issues like housing, transportation and public safety.
On Kenai’s side, city employees plugged progress on the bluff bank stabilization project, efforts to establish direct air service to Seattle and plans for a new playground in Old Town.
Kenai Police Chief Dave Ross recapped a joint emergency training exercise at the tribe’s educational campus. The event drew more than 100 participants and was the largest school-based training event on the central Kenai Peninsula.
“It was excellent training for something we all hope never happens here,” he said.
The tribe highlighted the Dena’ina-focused charter school set to open later this year, plans to expand housing for tribe elders and the upcoming deployment of an areawide bus service.
Tribal Council Treasurer Wayne Wilson Jr. also previewed a new health clinic the tribe is putting in Soldotna.
“We're excited about it, because we're going to expand and we'll be able to provide services,” he said. “So people who live in Soldotna, Funny River, Sterling will have better access or closer access to our facilities.”
A recurring theme of the meeting was the potential for the city and tribe to team up when seeking a shared opportunity.
For example, Kenai Public Works Director Lee Frey said the two groups are working together to replace culverts along Cemetery Creek. The waterway is a spawning ground for salmon, which the city and tribe want to preserve. Frey says the two organizations are taking separate but similar strategies to get the project funded.
“We're both going to apply for the grant and see who's successful,” he said.
The meeting was also an opportunity for city or tribal council members to speak about topics of interest to them. Wilson, for example, said he’d like to see more about the Dena’ina people in the airport’s cultural displays. Atchison offered a regional land acknowledgement. She says it’s an example of what cultural recognition can look like.
“We respectfully acknowledge the Kahtnuht’ana and other Dena’ina Peoples on whose traditional lands we reside,” the acknowledgement says. “We honor the Kahtnuht’ana and other Dena’ina peoples who have and continue to be stewards of Alaska's air, lands and waters from time immemorial, the Elders who lived here before the Dena’ina people of today and future generations to come.”
Atchison says she’ll take some of the ideas proposed during the work session back to her tribal council. She favors a formal agreement between the tribe and city that outlines ways the city and tribe will work together.
