The late City of Ketchikan mayor, Lew Williams III, started the relatively new tradition of state-of-the-city addresses.
The Greater Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce warmed quickly to the idea, adding an address by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough mayor.
For almost a decade on separate Wednesdays during chamber luncheons early in a new year, the mayors recount what the local government has accomplished and what it has planned moving forward.
It is an opportunity to see the borough or the city from the point of view of the mayors' seats.
This Wednesday (today, actually) Borough Mayor Rodney Dial will stand before the business organization, and any members of the public who wish to attend, to present a state-of-the-borough address.
Judging by Monday's Borough Assembly meeting — in particular public comments about taxes — the borough has hot issues.
That and the borough has begun its annual budget process; both likely will be subjects of interest at the mayor's presentation.
This also will be an opportunity to ask questions of the mayor and perhaps borough staff who attend, as well.
It isn't unusual that mayors have addressed the business community and others, and it has become an annual tradition not unlike a local-level state-of-the-state or state-of-the-union, with one of the community's highest-placed elected officials telling it like it is.