The Kenai Peninsula Borough could be getting a new department. That’s if assembly members approve a proposal from Borough Mayor Peter Micciche to create the Department of Public Safety Communications.
The borough manages the Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center, a 9-1-1 dispatch center near Safeway in Soldotna. Under the proposal, oversight of that agency would shift from an eight-member advisory board to borough administration.
In practice, Tammy Goggia-Cockrell says that would not change much operationally. She coordinates the center and would become the new department’s director if the proposal passes.
“I'm requesting to formally recognize the center as a department within the executive branch to reflect what has accurately been the case for several years, and this is how we function,” she said. “It's just been an oversight.”
Goggia-Cockrell also says the center’s advisory board was established in the early 1980s to, in part, advise the borough on the center’s infrastructure needs. Today, those needs are already handled by the borough. She says there have been times where the board was entirely inactive for multiple years at a time due to lack of agenda items.
In addition to creating the new department, the ordinance would also sunset that advisory board. Assembly members gave the ordinance initial approval Tuesday. It will be up for a public hearing and final vote next month.
