Anchorage ordinance would put all Assembly license and assessment hearings under one set of rules

Anchorage residents fighting a marijuana license suspension, an alcohol license protest, or a special assessment on their property would face one uniform set of hearing rules under an ordinance headed to the Assembly for reading Tuesday.

Right now those rules are scattered across the municipal code, with each kind of case carrying its own timelines and procedures. The ordinance, submitted by Assembly Chair Anna Brawley, would pull them into a single chapter covering every administrative and quasi-judicial matter the Assembly hears, so a resident faces the same process whatever the dispute. It sets common rules on evidence, bars Assembly members from private contact with interested parties once an item is on the agenda, and requires members with a substantial financial or private interest to step aside.

It also sets standard deadlines for exchanging evidence before a hearing and standard windows for written decisions and for appealing them to Superior Court, in place of the varying timelines each case type carries now.

Some matters would always take the stricter formal-adjudication track unless waived, such as suspension or revocation of a marijuana license, where parties gain the right to subpoena witnesses through the municipal clerk.

Brawley's accompanying memo stresses that the change is procedural. "The ordinance does not change the Assembly's authority in these areas," it says. Removal of the mayor, an Assembly member, or a school board member stays outside the new chapter, still governed by separate sections of code.

The scattered status quo has left the Assembly working case by case. At a 2025 meeting, then-Chair Christopher Constant told colleagues, "We are constantly figuring out what this means because we are generally a political body and find ourselves in a quasi-judicial position on alcohol licenses and marijuana licenses."

A reading is not a vote on passage. The decision is nearly two months off: the Assembly has set the public hearing for Oct. 6, and residents can submit written comment before then at the municipality's testimony page.