by Michael Armstrong

Special to The Seward Folly

Photo credit: Seward Chamber of Commerce

Following citizen comments, the Seward City Council at its regular Monday night meeting postponed until a special meeting next week a resolution amending the fiscal year 2025-26 budget. The council will consider Resolution 2026-022 at the meeting starting at 6 p.m. March 2.

The council also made major changes to the zoning code regarding parking requirements. In a comprehensive rewrite, it eliminated almost all parking requirements, such as the minimum number of spaces for most uses and districts. The council also discussed a proposed ordinance that would restrict the number of marijuana licenses in the city.

Speaking in the citizen comment period at the beginning of the meeting, Rhonda Hubbard was one of the people critical of the budget resolution.

“Asking this Council today to approve applying 1 million plus of unbudgeted surplus revenues over the equally contrived amount of unbudgeted expenses goes beyond the pale of proper public process and principle,” she said.

The mid-cycle adjustments reflected an increase of projected sales and bed tax revenues. The city’s investment portfolio also generated earnings above earlier projections. For FY 2026, the revised projection for sales tax revenues is $8.3 million and about $900,000 for bed taxes. The revised budget also includes changes to the budget for the Police Department, Library Department, and Parks and Recreation Department. The Parks and Recreation changes include funding a vacant Teen Youth Center position due to increased popularity of the center.

The council did approve introducing a substitute version of the resolution by City Manager Kat Sorensen. That ordinance is on the city website at https://www.cityofseward.us/home/showpublisheddocument/5752.

Council Member Mike Calhoon moved for postponement of the budget resolution.

“I got a lot of input from community members that they would like to have an opportunity to speak to this mid-cycle budget adjustment,” he said in making his motion. “…  My hope is that we can get some input on that, but also will give us more time to make sure that, that this is where we want to go.”

Council Member Lori Draper said she agreed with Calhoon.

“I have probably six legal pages filled with questions that I still haven’t asked, and I already asked quite a few of them,” she said. “I need more time I feel, to feel comfortable with it. … And like I said, it’s a million dollars. A million here, a million there, pretty soon you’re talking about money.”

The change to the parking code came about after three work sessions held by the Seward Planning and Zoning Commission starting last May. (For more background on the parking code updates, see previous articles in the December 4, 2025, edition of the Seward Folly, titled “Seward Debates Future of Parking Requirements,” and the January 8, 2026, edition, titled “Seward Planning and Zoning Commission approves parking code changes, sets 2026 priorities.”) According to the agenda statement, the commission looked at a challenge with the city’s parking code: that there is no universally accepted metric for determining minimal parking spaces and that rigid parking requirements create barriers to development. 

A draft proposal suggested reducing minimum parking requirements for some uses, but then at its Jan. 6 meeting, on a motion from Commissioner Brenan Hornseth, the commission recommended eliminating most parking requirements entirely. The ordinance the council passed did so, except for requiring two parking spaces for single-family homes on lots greater than 3,000 square feet and one parking space per unit for multi-family homes outside the Central Business and Harbor Commercial zoning districts.

In the public hearing on the ordinance,  Hornseth said, “With the passage of this ordinance, Seward can join thousands of towns across the nation which have taken similar steps and reaping rewards of better utilized valuable land, increased infill, additional housing and lower barriers for owners and businesses to develop their own private land.”

Another person testifying, Tamara Filipovic, said, “I’d also like to point out that existing parking in our town will not go away as a result of this ordinance. What is more, many people and builders and developers may still choose to build parking because that is what they or their customers prefer and want. But the point is that that choice for parking is with the very people whose land it is, instead of that decision being forced on all of us in a one-size-fits-all approach.”

The council also took up discussion on Council Member Calhoon’s proposed restrictions on marijuana licenses in the city. In a memo, Calhoon wrote that he wanted to limit the number of marijuana licenses to one per 3,000 population, mirroring liquor-license limits. He also proposed allowing on-site consumption to indoors only and to prohibit drive-through cannabis sales.

Calhoon said he wanted to limit licenses for any type of regulated use, including retail and manufacturing.

“I would like to limit that number to two total licenses for the whole industry, is what I’m looking to do,” he said.

Council Member Warner proposed upping the limit to three. Under confidentiality rules for sales tax reports, if there’s one owner per business category, that information can’t be released, she said. 

That’s the current situation in Seward, Sorensen noted. 

“Here we have one marijuana retailer in town with two separate locations, but tax information is not shared because there’s nobody else,” she said.

Calhoon said he agreed with the idea, but pointed out if one person owned all three licenses, that would still keep information confidential. Warner suggested a prohibition Longmont, Colorado, applies where a licensee can’t have more than one license. 

Council discussion was only on bringing a proposed ordinance forward. It voted to direct city administration to prepare such an ordinance.

Calhoon noted the public will have an opportunity to comment on any proposed ordinance.

“This will be an ordinance that’s put together,” he said. “We’ll have the public hearing. Amendments can be made, things can be added, things can be changed.”

The next Seward City Council meeting will be held on Monday, March 2, 2026, starting at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers. Find the latest Council Packet here.

Michael Armstrong is a retired journalist currently volunteering as the editor of the Homer Independent Press. Reach him at wordfolk@gmail.com.

The Seward Folly co-publisher, Robert Barnwell, is a current member of the Seward City Council, but he did not participate in the editing of this story.