The City and Borough of Juneau could be nearing the end of a stay of action in its legal battle with the cruise industry, and is financially preparing for negotiations to restart.<\/p>\n
The CBJ Assembly approved an ordinance Monday night that appropriates $100,000 to City Attorney Amy Mead for legal expenses. This money comes from the sales tax fund\u2019s balance in the 2017 fiscal year budget. Mead said the money is being put aside mostly if outside counsel is needed in the case, and that the money does not go to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to have money to pay attorneys if attorneys need to get involved,\u201d Mead said. \u201cSo if we do successfully negotiate a settlement, there will be some settlement documents that need to get drafted.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April 2016, Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) filed a lawsuit against the city asserting that the city misused money from a \u201chead tax,\u201d a tax that gives Juneau $8 for every cruise passenger. Finance Director Bob Bartholomew said that CBJ has already spent $283,000 through the end of February on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Bartholomew added that it\u2019s difficult to predict how much the city will end up spending on the lawsuit in total, because it could end in any number of ways, from a settlement in the lower courts to the slight possibility of a Supreme Court case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about it quite a while ago,\u201d Bartholomew said, \u201cthat estimating it was really such a wild guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March, both sides decided to stay all pretrial deadlines for 30 days, according to court records, so the stay would extend until April 14. Mead said she was set to speak with CLIA attorneys as soon as Tuesday in a discussion about whether to extend the stay or resume negotiations.<\/p>\n
The appropriated funds during Monday\u2019s meeting are mostly precautionary, Mead said. The city\u2019s charter prohibits the city from enlisting work from outside attorneys without having money budgeted for that cost, so this appropriation helps the city avoid a charter violation.<\/p>\n
The city government\u2019s relationship with the cruise industry is two-sided, as the city greatly benefits from the income generated from the cruise ships \u2014 an estimated $20.5 million per year, according to CBJ \u2014 but doesn\u2019t want the cruise companies to take advantage of the city.<\/p>\n
At a particularly lively Assembly meeting in early March, the Assembly discussed and passed an ordinance exempting sales taxes on cruise ships. Multiple Assembly members, including Mayor Ken Koelsch, asserted that exempting sales taxes on cruise ships while they\u2019re in CBJ waters would further encourage them to visit Juneau. The CBJ estimated that charging sales taxes on cruise ships could raise between $50,000 and $100,000, but the Assembly chose to value the city\u2019s relationship with the cruise industry over the possible sales tax income.<\/p>\n
During this Monday\u2019s Assembly meeting, there were no dissenters as it related to the appropriation to the City Attorney, and nobody from the public shared their thoughts. It took just 90 seconds from the introduction of the ordinance to it passing unanimously.<\/p>\n
Assembly member Jesse Kiehl, who voted against the sales tax exemption, said Tuesday that this appropriation is a totally separate issue, and that having more money set aside for the lawsuit is a move that those on the Assembly can all agree on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s broad consensus on the Assembly that we\u2019ve used industry money legally,\u201d Kiehl said, \u201cso we\u2019re pretty well agreed on defending the suit.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The City and Borough of Juneau could be nearing the end of a stay of action in its legal battle with the cruise industry, and is financially preparing for negotiations to restart. The CBJ Assembly approved an ordinance Monday night that appropriates $100,000 to City Attorney Amy Mead for legal expenses. This money comes from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":19694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19693"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}