MEMORANDUM

To: Ronald Drathman, Assembly President

Members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly

Thru: Mike Navarre, Borough Mayor

From: John Alcantra, Emergency Management Coordinator

Subject: Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities

Date: April 8, 1999

The purpose of this memorandum is to clarify the Borough's participation in Project Impact. Project Impact is a pre-disaster mitigation grant program that will provide $300,000 in federal funds for specific mitigation projects. Pleas see the attached Peninsula Clarion articles dated March 24 and April 7.

The KPB was selected from a field of over twenty-five local governments throughout Alaska invited to participate in Project Impact. On December 10, 1998, the Kenai Peninsula Borough was announced as the selected Alaskan community for FFY 1999. The Borough joins the Municipality of Anchorage as the only two selected communities in Alaska to date. The grant funds will expire at the end of FFY 2000, or September 30, 2000.

The required 25 percent local match ($100,000) is described by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a "flexible" match. Office of Emergency Management and Planning Department time spent on the proposal qualifies as matching funds. Furthermore, any private industry donations to Project Impact (similar to Unocal's donation for the Community Alert Network) would also qualify as matching funds under the flexible match criteria.

I am requesting that this Ordinance be included on the April 20, 1999 assembly agenda and be granted a shortened hearing so the full Assembly may vote on this ordinance on May 4, 1999. This will allow the Borough to begin implementing mitigation measures and work toward completing the projects simultaneous with the conclusion of FFY 2000.

If you have any questions regarding Project Impact or this ordinance, please call me at 262-4441, extension 319.