A Bethel resident came to last night’s city council meeting with a plea. Tom McCallson lives in Bethel’s Haroldson Subdivision, past the city’s dump. McCallson wants the city to plow and maintain a road to the subdivision so that emergency services can access the area.
The issue of an online sales tax in Bethel has been postponed. The city council voted to table the proposed Uniform Remote Sellers Sales Tax Code until its April 14 regular meeting.
The campaign to remove Gov. Mike Dunleavy from office has come to Bethel. Volunteers with Recall Dunleavy began collecting signatures last week in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta hub. More than 71,000 registered voters across the state need to sign the recall petition in order to bring it to a vote. KYUK talked with the Bethel volunteers on their first day of signature gathering.
Bethel officially has a new city manager and city attorney. Bethel City Council unanimously voted to accept contracts for City Manager Vincenzo “Vinny” Corazza, and City Attorney Elizabeth “Libby” Bakalar.
One of the effects of enacting local option is that Bethel loses much of its alcohol sales tax, which is $500,000 that the city estimated it would receive last year. It still receives some alcohol sales tax from restaurant beer and wine sales. The decreased revenue means funding for Bethel’s Community Action Grant program is almost gone as well.
Bethel is now much closer to filling the top positions in the city’s administration. Last night, the city council interviewed two candidates for two positions and unanimously voted to offer contracts to both of them. This decision came after in-person interviews with Vincenzo “Vinny” Corazza for city manager, and Elizabeth “Libby” Bakalar for city attorney.
The Bethel City Council will conduct two important interviews on Feb. 10. They will assess the finalists for both the city manager and city attorney positions in person, starting at 6 p.m. in interviews open to the public.
