After the appointment was postponed during the Oct. 25 Homer City Council meeting due to a split vote between council members Donna Aderhold and Shelly Erickson, Aderhold was appointed mayor pro tempore during Monday night’s city council meeting. As mayor pro tempore for 2021-22, Aderhold will act as mayor during Mayor Ken Castner’s absence or disability.

The mayor pro tempore, when acting in the mayor’s capacity, does not lose their privileges or duty to vote as a council member.

Aderhold was nominated for the position by council member Rachel Lord and has previously served as mayor pro tempore.

“It’s a really great role for somebody with a seniority on council, and I think Donna is, in my experience sitting with council member Aderhold, is very, very attuned to where we are on an agenda,” previous mayor pro tempore and council member Lord said.

“I think she’s a fair and very process procedural-oriented person who’s able to run a meeting very efficiently and effectively,” Lord continued.

In addition to appointing Aderhold as mayor pro tempore, the council adopted several ordinances during the meeting with little to no discussion.

Ordinance 21-64 allows the council to accept and appropriate a $142,132 grant from the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for a bi-directional amplifier system for the Homer Police Department and microwave links for Homer’s repeaters. The new equipment will help improve the community’s response to emergencies through timely and effective communication.

Ordinance 21-65 amends the fiscal year 2022 capital budget to appropriate an additional $45,000 from the General Fund CARMA Fund for a total expenditure of $120,000 to replace and upgrade departmental servers across city departments. Several servers on which the city stores files and communications passed their service life in 2020 and are no longer sufficient for the city’s needs. While the council previously allocated $75,000 in Ordinance 21-19 to replace the servers, the total replacement and installation costs are estimated at $120,000.

Ordinance 21-66 extends the time limit to upgrade and replace the city’s microwave wide-area network (WAN) through Dec. 21, 2023. The original project to upgrade and replace WAN equipment, which securely connects communications and data for various departments of the City of Homer, was postponed in 2018 because of the police department building construction and later by the pandemic. Ordinance 21-66 allows the city more time to use the allocated $130,000 to update its equipment.

For more information about the Nov. 8 city council meeting, visit www.cityofhomer-ak.gov/citycouncil/city-council-special-meeting-124.

The next city council meeting will be held Dec. 13 in the Cowles Council Chambers in City Hall and will also be broadcast via radio and Zoom.

Reach Sarah Knapp at sarah.knapp@homernews.com.