The City of Soldotna is asking the Alaska Municipal League to hold its summer 2027 conference at the Soldotna Field House. City council members signed off on the host application last week.
The Alaska Municipal League, often shorthanded to AML, is a statewide nonprofit membership organization that boasts more than 150 member cities, boroughs and communities. The group holds multiple meetings per year, including the summer legislative conference, which typically draws between 75 and 100 attendees.
This year’s summer legislative conference was in Utqiaġvik.
Soldotna’s application says the city has enough local hotels to accommodate a minimum of 100 people, and that the city can provide transportation to anyone who isn’t within walking distance of the field house. And it touts Soldotna’s annual Wednesday Market as something that could enhance the conference for visitors.
Since last December, Soldotna Vice Mayor Lisa Parker has served as president of the league’s board of directors. The Kenai Peninsula Borough, as well as the cities of Kenai, Soldotna, Homer, Seward, Seldovia and Kachemak are all AML members.
The summer conference is only the latest big event to get a pitch from the city’s new field house, which opened in August. The field house has already hosted the Kenai River Sportfishing Association’s annual roundtable. And it was a proposed site of the Alaska Board of Fisheries’ next Upper Cook Inlet meeting, though board members ultimately opted to convene in Anchorage.
