Anchorage Assembly to hold hearing on keeping three advisory boards from dissolving

The Anchorage Assembly will hold a public hearing Tuesday, Oct. 6, on an ordinance that would keep three city advisory bodies from dissolving Oct. 14. The ordinance, introduced Sept. 1 by Assembly Chair Anna Brawley, would extend the Watershed and Natural Resources Advisory Commission, the Don Young Port of Alaska Modernization Program Advisory Board and the Public Naming Commission to Oct. 14, 2029.

City code ends most boards every three years, a "sunset" that takes effect unless the Assembly votes to continue them after a public hearing. The city's Office of Internal Audit reviewed all three bodies and in July recommended reauthorizing each.

The port board has all six voting seats filled and met nine times from January 2025 through June 2026, the audit found. In that time it recommended ground improvements at Terminals 1 and 2 to keep the shoreline stable in a "contingency level earthquake," the rare, severe quake the port must be designed to withstand, backed a paved helipad on the port's north extension and supported a site for a new electrical substation to power the port's cranes. But port staff could not find minutes for two 2025 meetings, and only one of the nine meetings was announced on the city's public notice website.

The Watershed and Natural Resources Advisory Commission, which advises the city on wetlands, watersheds and other natural-resource issues, has six of its nine seats filled. It met five times, kept minutes for each meeting and passed two resolutions on wetlands policy, but did not release an annual report for 2025.

The Public Naming Commission, which applies the city's standards for naming public places, has five of nine seats filled. It held six regular meetings and five work sessions and in March sought new members for its vacant seats. The audits found both commissions' meetings were only sometimes announced on the public notice website.

The Assembly ran the same process last fall, reauthorizing six boards on Oct. 7, 2025.

The hearing is at the Z.J. Loussac Library. Residents who want to testify by phone must sign up at muni.org/testimony by 5 pm Monday, Oct. 5, and written comments go to the same site. In-person testimony needs no sign-up.