With a year under his belt, Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Dale Bagley reviewed the past and looked toward the future. Others also took the opportunity to offer their evaluation.
"Everyone asks if it is what I expected," Bagley said. "I didn't know what to expect, but I'm having a very good time."
Winning last year's election, Bagley took the reins from Mike Navarre. No newcomer to elected offices, Bagley sat on the Soldotna City Council in 1994 and was elected to the borough assembly in 1995.
Between 1994 and 1999, he was a real estate agent for Freedom Realty, was on the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank board from 1994 through 1995, was elected to the Kenai Peninsula Board of Realtors board in 1994 and 1995, and was elected to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Board of Realtors in 1999. He has lived on the Kenai Peninsula off and on for the past 36 years.
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Bagley listens to a speaker at the 2000 Economic Development Outlook Forum Friday morning at the Soldotna Sports Center.
Photo by M. Scott Moon
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Bagley's 1999 campaign rested on four issues: a healthy economy, better roads, better government and making land available to the public.
During his first year in office, he increased the road service mill rate by a half mill and reduced the general mill rate an equal amount. What difference is there for borough residents?
"The roads were graded more often during the summer, and the roads department is doing an excellent job getting sand on them this winter," Bagley said.
A telephone caller told Bagley "it was many years since he'd had sand on his road, but now he can get out on the road and he was very, very happy about that."
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Mayor Dale Bagley's portrait, lower right, joins pictures of other Borough Mayors outside his office.
Photo by M. Scott Moon
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Helping Bagley ensure good road maintenance is Gary Davis, who came to the borough after deciding not to seek re-election to the Alaska House of Representatives.
"(Davis) is doing an awesome job as roads director," Bagley said. "He's done a great job responding to people that call and ask him to take care of problems."
In terms of getting land to the public, Bagley said the borough held its annual land sale.
"Fortunately, we did not have enough tax foreclosures to have a tax foreclosure sale this year," the Mayor said. "And Point Possession (land being made available) didn't get past the assembly. But I'm optimistic that we'll bring that back."
He predicted a brighter outcome for borough land in Cooper Landing.
Toward developing better government, Bagley has continued Navarre's monthly brown bag lunches with the public. On another front, he has "changed the way we do the budget."
"What was happening was that we would always do a balanced budget. No finance director has ever lost a job for projecting low revenues," Bagley said. "So they always projected low, and then it came in higher and the department had lapses when they wouldn't spend all their money."
The excess went to the general fund, which, the mayor said, was increasing at a rapid rate. Now budgeting calls for running "negative budgets," with departments dipping into the general fund to cover shortfalls.
"Mike (Navarre) had actually started a plan to reduce the general fund because it was really, really growing," Bagley said. "In spite of a concerted effort to reduce the general fund, it still would not come down much. That was a three-year program that just ended in this year's budget."
On another fiscal front, Bagley pointed to a reduction in penalties and interest for delinquent property taxes.
"If it was one day late you got hammered with a 12 percent penalty," Bagley said. "And we were seeing that a lot of people wouldn't make the half payment due in August, but waited to pay when the permanent fund dividends came out. So this is one way we are trying to be responsive."
Working with Bagley on budget issues has been Finance Director Jeff Sinz, who also served in Navarre's administration.
"He's done a great job over the years and has a very good way of explaining things so they're simple to understand," Bagley said.
Lending his expertise in the assessing department is assessor Shane Horan.
"Shane is going a great job," Bagley said. "Some of the assessing depends on interpretation of statutes. The former assessor had one interpretation. Shane has another. People have been very responsive to it."
Horan, a 20-year Juneau resident, initially joined the borough as a commercial appraiser before becoming the assessor in July.
"He has been very supportive," Horan said of his boss. "He's given me a lot of leeway to just perform the duties of the assessor. I think it's been going well."
Through creation of the Community and Economic Development Division, Bagley brought promotion of economic development into the mayor's office. The division is staffed with a grant writer and an economist. Financial support given to the Economic Development District also has been reduced.
Bagley said he is encouraged by economic development possibilities currently on the horizon, including BP's gas-to-liquids project, the possible relocation of Alaska Petroleum Contractor's fabrication plant from Anchorage to the peninsula, the focus on a Cook Inlet terminus for a gas line from the North Slope and the potential construction of a prison facility.
He praised others on his staff, including Colette Thompson, borough attorney; Don McCloud, of the maintenance department; Bob Bright, who replaced Lisa Parker as the planning director; Richard Campbell, the borough's administrative officer; Cathy Mayer who manages the borough's landfills; Rob Robson, contract administrator; Jan Henry, who replaced John Alcantra as the new head of the Office of Emergency Management after Alcantra relocated to Anchorage; John Mohorcich at the Kenai River Center; and Ed Oberts, Bagley's assistant.
Bagley said his goal for the upcoming year is to spend more time visiting peninsula communities and borough departments.
Former Mayor Mike Navarre chose not to comment on Bagley's first year in office; however, assembly member Jack Brown gave Bagley high marks.
"He's done an excellent job," said Brown, praising Bagley for his presence at borough events, his involvement in economic development issues, the staff he's put together and his involvement with land issues.
Assembly member Bill Popp also offered an assessment of the mayor's first year.
"I think the mayor is very earnest in the things he tried to do, but had a lot of problems getting his hands around the way the administration worked," Popp said.
He credited Bagley for his work on the road service area mill rate, but passed on offering suggestions for the future.
"If I was going to offer suggestions, I would do it personally," Popp said. "He's had a somewhat rough first year, relations were not the best between the mayor and the borough assembly, but the second year holds opportunities for a better working relationship."
Bagley agreed his relationship with the assembly has been rocky at times.
"We do have some differences, but 90 percent of the issues we're in agreement on. It's the 10 percent that seems to make the paper all the time."
