An unexpected sight at the Nome City Council meeting this week: the city.
Nome residents showed up in force at Monday night’s meeting to sound off on ordinances up for a vote, everything from rising utility rates to new rules for late-night noise, shooting a firearm in city limits, and the city’s long-gestating marijuana laws.
First up, a noise ordinance that would set city-wide restrictions on “excessive noise” between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Violators would face a $300 fine. Outgoing city manager Josie Bahnke stressed the council worked with Nome police to write the new law.
“We’ve had several work sessions on this topic with the police chief to get something on the books that the police department can enforce,” Bahnke said. “It creates a civil penalty as opposed to a criminal penalty,” to wit, a citation as opposed to a charge for criminal mischief or disorderly conduct.
Some members of the public spoke in favor of the noise rules, and some even wanted the quiet hours extended, but others urged the council to vote no. That’s exactly what they did; the vote on the new noise rules failed.
Next up, a new law against discharging firearms in the city, which came to the council with a long list of exemptions for things like subsistence or sport hunting, and defense of life or property. But the council also rejected that new law, with many deeming it unnecessary.
“There’s a state law for misconduct involving a weapon, second degree. It’s on the books. I am not in favor of making a law that we have no reason for,” council member Matt Culley said. “This all came up over subsistence hunting of a walrus [within city limits earlier this summer] … one incident which would be covered by this. We’re literally making a law that’s never had an issue before. You shouldn’t make laws if you don’t need ‘em.”
The vote was split, but too few “ayes” caused the firearm ordinance to also fail.
Next in the council’s sights: the city’s new marijuana laws. Via teleconference the city’s attorney stressed Nome’s proposed laws were similar to rules being worked out and adopted in cities and boroughs across the state. Several residents nonetheless took to the podium during the public hearing and urged the council to reject the new laws outright. Others asked for clarification as to what smoking the now-legal drug “in public” means, or what specifically “marijuana use in a vehicle” entails.
That led to a lengthy debate among council members that ultimately stripped out one provision of the law, removing language forbidding the transportation of legal pot into the city for sale within city limits. Deep into the weeds for the new pot laws, council member Tom Sparks said he couldn’t vote for something so broad.
“I do have an issue with the commercial manufacturing [prohibition], from the testimony and from the people who’ve talked to me,” Sparks said.
Council member Culley responded: “I mean they can still get it,” referring to marijuana products the ordinance would have prohibited from being brought into Nome for sale within city limits.
“Well, what I’m worried about is, that they won’t be able to go get it,” Sparks responded.
“It can’t be brought in for commercial use, that’s it,” Culley rejoined. “They can get their own [marijuana].”
“Well, if they can’t, you know, if they can’t go get it …” Sparks replied.
“If they’re going to import it, they’re going to have to bring it in by dog sled,” council member Stan Andersen said, noting any other kind of transport into Nome for personal use would involve waterways or air freight that would likely conflict with federal marijuana prohibition laws still on the books.
“I just didn’t understand the ramifications … and felt uncomfortable about voting for it,” Sparks concluded.
The marijuana laws that did pass ultimately removed the contentious rule against marijuana imports into the city for sale within city limits. The rest of Nome’s marijuana laws passed and are now officially on the books. The core of the new law sets up the city council as the “local regulatory authority” for legal marijuana sales in Nome down the road.
From the law books to the bank ledger, the council unanimously approved a new budget for Nome Joint Utility, as well as a rate hike that will see electric rates jump for most home users to about $0.20 per kilowatt-hour, roughly a 10 percent increase. Sewer and water rates will see a similar jump.
Utility manager John Handeland told the council the overall impact of the increased water and electric rates could see the average customer’s bill grow by about $107 in a year, or roughly $9 a month.
Before a vote, however, a petitioner urged the council to table the issue, claiming to have as many as 400 signatures against any increase. But the council merely shrugged, and voted unanimously on the increases.
With the rate hike passed, the utility expects to bring in an extra $600,000 a year, an effort to make what auditors have called the utility’s “troubled” finances healthy and sustainable.
Closing the meeting, council members thanked city manager Bahnke for her seven years on the job. As the council bade farewell to Bahnke, they also officially approved the contract for the new city manager, Tom Moran, with an annual salary of $95,000 a year.
