Three students share the Anchorage Assembly's youth representative seat

Three high school students are sharing the Anchorage Assembly's youth representative seat through April 30, 2027.

Assembly Chair Anna Brawley appointed Rakick Ali, Malachi Cochran and Rebecca McCullough as what her memorandum calls "a cohort of equals" sharing the position. The term began Tuesday, when the memorandum went before the Assembly for the confirmation required under municipal code AMC 2.30.025.

The seat is reserved for Anchorage residents ages 16 to 19. Youth representatives attend regular Assembly meetings, share input and cast a preferential vote that does not bind the outcome. Code also bars them from executive sessions and quasi-judicial hearings, keeps their vote out of the clerk's totals and does not count them toward a quorum. The job can pay: the Assembly set $2,000 for each of last year's three representatives.

Thirteen students applied from area high schools. Six advanced to a Meet & Greet Worksession with the Assembly on Aug. 7. The 2025-26 cohort also had three students, confirmed Sept. 9, 2025. Brawley said strong applicants outnumbered the places available.

How the seat gets filled is contested. In June 2022 the Youth Advisory Commission censured an Assembly ordinance "for its suppression of youth voices in Anchorage," saying it stripped the commission's right to nominate representatives and gave that power to the chair. In May 2025 the Assembly accepted recommendations from its own outgoing youth cohort, who asked to be "selected by the entire Assembly, rather than solely by the Chair, to minimize bias," and to be seated in August. This appointment came Sept. 15.

The memorandum encourages applicants who were not selected to apply to the commission, which recently seated Ariana Bond to a term through Oct. 14, 2028, or to try again next year.