NOTN- The City and Borough of Juneau is moving to terminate its revenue sharing agreement with Goldbelt, as discussed at a Committee of the Whole work session Monday night, over the proposed gondola project at Eaglecrest.
Mayor Beth Weldon said the Assembly’s Committee of the Whole voted to end the existing Revenue Sharing Agreement (RSA) with Goldbelt, citing mounting interest costs and concerns over the city’s fund balance.
At Monday night’s meeting City Manager Katie Koester introduced the Gondola issue, saying, “We have a 99% designed gondola, and all the parts and pieces for this mountain, and marketing that to an outside investor is certainly something that this body has expressed interest in. As a reminder repayment on May 1 is a little over $12 million. We have about $3.3 million left in the project account. However, there’s lots of moving pieces and encumbrances, and I’d like to leave at least, you know, half a million dollars in that account to cover some of those.”
“Goldbelt still wants to negotiate, but in the meantime, the revenue sharing agreement that we have keeps collecting interest, so we moved an ordinance to terminate the RSA with Goldbelt forward to the full assembly, accompanied by an appropriate ordinance for 9.5 million from fund balance and 2.7 million in the remaining gondola project. So we’re going to terminate the RSA agreement, but that doesn’t mean that we still won’t negotiate with Goldbelt or another entity to move forward.” Weldon said.
The city is advancing an ordinance to appropriate $9.5 million from its fund balance and $2.7 million from remaining gondola project funds. Those dollars would be used to satisfy the city’s obligations under the RSA.
“There was quite a bit of conversation that this will take our fund balance down considerably, but we have yet to do all of our work, and so we’re working on trying to put stuff back in the fund balance, and we have a ways to go.” She said.
The refund to Goldbelt could go out soon after the Assembly’s next regular meeting, Weldon said. “it will come in our next assembly meeting, if that passes, it will go through.” She added.
Weldon said she has already submitted budget-cutting ideas to help replenish reserves, though it will be up to the Assembly to decide what to adopt.
The gondola was one of three major financial and development topics discussed at the Assembly Committee of the Whole work session, alongside Telephone Hill development and child care funding.