Every year, the city of Kenai’s mayor and city manager gather municipal workers and community members for a speech. It’s the annual state of the city address – this year is the seventh. Looking out across the crowd at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center, Mayor Brian Gabriel says it's basically a time to brag about the city’s accomplishments over the last year.
“I get the pleasure of going over the highlights of our departments that they've had for the last year,” he said. “And this list by no means is complete.”
Those highlights run the gamut. Like the more 100,000 checkouts from the city library, over 30,000 volunteer hours at the Kenai Senior Center and 15% bump in air traffic at the municipal airport.
But the address is also a sort-of check in on city finances. The city’s more than doubled the money it gets from online sales tax since it started collecting that tax in 2021. And Gabriel says the city’s brick-and-mortar sales tax revenue trends are positive.
“The fourth quarter count, calendar quarter of 2 024 represented the 30th consecutive quarter of positive year over year sales tax growth in the city,” he said. “So that helps us understand that people are continuing to come to the city of Kenai to spend money.”
Terry Eubank is the city manager. He dialed in on projects the city either completed or worked on.
And as the city gets ready to buckle down for budget season, Eubank says officials are grappling with some pricey pursuits. For example, the city’s in the process of assessing its public safety building. The building houses Kenai police, fire and 9-1-1 dispatchers and has been in service for more than half a century. Eubank says it needs a lot of work.
“We have millions of dollars in work to do to that building and roofs and the not real, super exciting parts of the building, but we want to make sure before we spend that amount of money there, that that building is going to meet our needs for the next 50 years,” he said.
That assessment comes as the city prepares to welcome the first shipment of rock for its long-awaited bluff stabilization project. The city successfully rezoned land near the mouth of the Kenai River to better accommodate plans for a revitalized waterfront. And city officials are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service to stabilize culverts.
Gabriel and Eubank were asked about how the proposed Alaska LNG Project would impact the city. If it’s built, the project would move natural gas from the North Slope to a liquefaction facility in Nikiski. To get to Nikiski by car, you have to drive through Kenai. Here’s Gabriel again.
“We've had, you know, internal discussions about this, and both agree that this would, you know, transform the city of Kenai greatly, and what we'd like to see is sort of a glide path for that happening, instead of a crash,” Gabriel said.
The project has taken some steps forward since President Donald Trump took office. He’s a vocal supporter of the project, which carries a price tag of $44 billion. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s being travelling in Asia to rally support and has picked up at least one non-binding agreement along the way.
Eubank says the city’s preparing the best it can. But he expects it to “drastically change” the community.
“We're talking, you know, I've heard numbers of 10,000 construction jobs for three to five years,” Eubank said. “I mean, that's doubling the population of the city or this area, you know, our area here. So, are we prepared? I think we're as prepared as we can be.”
The Kenai City Council on Wednesday scheduled their annual budget work session for May 3. The all-day event is a deep dive into each department, with opportunities for questions and debate from the council.
