Anchorage Assembly committees would consolidate under a draft from the Rules chair

The Anchorage Assembly would run fewer committees and meet less often under a draft restructuring its Rules chair presented Friday.

Chair Anna Brawley's plan merges the Homelessness Committee into the Health Committee, creating a Health and Homelessness Committee that would meet every other month rather than monthly. Housing moves to a proposed Housing and Community Development Committee. Quality Municipal Services and Ethics and Elections combine into a Governance Committee. Infrastructure oversight shifts under Transportation. Public Safety stays as it is.

Brawley said members want fewer meeting hours overall, and that combining health and homelessness would spare the Health Department from reporting to two separate committees. Committees could still call special meetings, she said, and she told Assembly Member Kameron Perez-Verdia that the merged panel would keep its policy role.

Jamie Lopez of East Anchorage, formerly with the Coalition for the Homeless, objected that cutting how often a committee meets cuts the public's chance to be heard. Setting a committee to bimonthly or quarterly amounts to "abdicating your duty," Lopez said.

The Assembly takes public testimony at its regular meetings, which it holds twice a month.

Feedback on the draft is due Aug. 27. Brawley said she wants the new committee structure in place by the end of September.