A sewage leak as well as an alarm malfunction caused by fire shut down the Fairbanks NorthStar Borough’s administration building on Wednesday. This included the treasury desk in the borough, where residents of the borough go for payment of their home tax payable on Friday.
Two distinct and evident problems that were at the same time.
“It was it was one of the most bizarre days I’ve ever had in the borough during the time that I’ve been there. I’ll let you know today,” Chief of Staff Jim Williams said.
Williams told me the following morning the fire alarms that were recently serviced started to sound, and so all employees had to go through the fire drill protocols. Every time.
“Our method is to call people out and form evacuate until you determine the cause and we saw him go off approximately 12 times even during the event as I tried to remove people from inside the structure, alarms started to sound.”
Williams claimed that the staff determined that an error was made inside the system for alarms. So, in between visits to the parking area at Terminal Street, they called to get it repaired.
“I am in the meantime, my alarms go off constantly and we also had City Fire showing up. It’s a good thing, because you want to ensure that there’s no fire. We went through all the procedures to deal with those alarms. It was sort of exhausting for the staff as well,” Williams said.
Then, another thing happened.
“What is believed to have happened was that we had an overflow of sewage at the top of the building. It was able to overflow from the restrooms on the second floor and sort of the central part of the building. It then began to flow into the clerk’s office, and to the floor above.,” Williams said. “Raw sewage.”
The office of the clerk immediately became non-functional. The smell then began to linger throughout the entire building.
” There was something filthy inside the building. It’s like, I don’t let employees employed in that. This won’t do the trick,” Williams said. “And I was in front for a bit until around two, three, or four, and I was kind of directing taxpayers when they walked in and many of them turned their heads up. It’s like’what’s the smell?’ They were able to smell the outside of the building. It was was terrible.”
These taxpayers? They’re trying to get to pay the first portion of their property taxes for the year by cash at the treasury desk. Although there is an option to pay with credit cards or taxpayers may pay by check, many prefer to pay in by hand. However, the facility was shut down.
” This is important in the context of tax deadlines because the tax deadline is on Friday the first. It is imperative to pay your first tax bill on the first Friday of the month otherwise you’ll be tardy,” Lojewski said.
Borough Assembly Presiding Officer Aaron Lojewski told the borough assembly that he was contacted from the administrative staff to convene an emergency session of the assembly to alter the tax date.
” A special emergency meeting that can be held with as little as a 24 hours notice. Therefore, we’re going to be meeting in the chambers of the school board to ensure that there isn’t an issue in our chambers. We’ll have a secure place to meet,” he said.
Lojewski stated that the resolution will alter the tax deadline from September. 1 to September. 5.
“So this would mean that taxes, if this plan is approved, will be due on Tuesday, which is the day that is the first business day following the weekend of holiday,” he said.
The resolution only changes the date for the tax payment’s first installment. The second part of the taxes owed are due on November 1st.
Williams stated that the borough isn’t affected by the catastrophic maintenance issues at the building of the Borough Wednesday.
” I’m not even sure what to say about it, the way it happened,” he said. “I simply know it was a very difficult day trying to motivate workers to finish their work and to get taxpayers paid and to get everyone into the building. It was not an easy task. It was was extremely painful.”
The employees were back in the building on Thursday morning dependent on the air conditioning to eliminate the smell.
This article has been revised.
