Fairbanks ordinance would shift board appointments from Assembly to borough mayor

Mayor Grier Hopkins would gain the power to appoint most members of Fairbanks North Star Borough boards and commissions now split between the Assembly and the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, under an ordinance the Assembly Committee of the Whole is scheduled to take up at a worksession Wednesday, Sept. 17. Assembly Member Scott Crass sponsored the ordinance, introduced Sept. 10, which cites Alaska Statute 29.20.320(b). That statute requires that members of boards and commissions, except the board of adjustment and Assembly members serving on the board of equalization, be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the governing body.

The change would hit the Board of Equalization directly. That board hears property assessment appeals and can alter an assessment. It has five regular members and two alternates serving three-year terms, and under current borough code the Assembly appoints them. The ordinance would instead require that every non-Assembly member be appointed by Hopkins and confirmed by the Assembly.

The cities of Fairbanks and North Pole would lose the power to nominate members directly to the seats reserved for their residents on the Economic Development Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission. Their mayors would instead submit lists of recommendations to Hopkins, who would make the appointment. The Economic Development Commission would keep its nine voting members, and the Historic Preservation Commission would keep its seven members; the ordinance does not change those totals. Six of the Economic Development Commission's nine seats would be appointed by Hopkins and confirmed by the Assembly, including the two filled from the Fairbanks and North Pole mayors' recommendation lists. The ordinance would also let Hopkins appoint himself, or a designee, as a member and chair of the Economic Development Commission.

Not every seat would move to the mayor's control. Two Economic Development Commission members would still be appointed from nominations by the Assembly's Presiding Officer rather than the mayor's own list, one an Assembly member and one a member of the public. That carve-out keeps a share of Assembly-linked influence over the commission even as the mayor gains broader authority elsewhere.

Ethics oversight would stay with the Assembly. The ordinance repeals the Assembly Board of Ethics chapter and creates an Assembly Ethics Committee of five public members and one alternate, nominated by the Presiding Officer and confirmed by the Assembly. That mirrors how the current ethics board, which reviews complaints against elected officials and board or commission members, is described in borough records.

Adoption of the ordinance would require action by the full Assembly.