Utqiagvik has been suspending its 3% sales tax since 2004. Six people can extend it to 2031

Shoppers in Utqiagvik would keep paying no general city sales tax until the middle of 2031 under an ordinance the City Council takes up Thursday, Sept. 24. The tax is three percent. Six council members can extend the break without asking voters.

Those six are Frances Olemaun, Kristin Gutierrez-Edwards, Craig Moore Jr., Martina R. Hopson, Heather Hopson and Sarah Tua'i, alongside Mayor Asisaun Toovak, who introduced the measure. Heather Hopson's and Tua'i's terms end next month.

Ordinance 04-2026 would amend Section 4.20.005 of the city code so that the city "temporarily suspends the provisions of this chapter from July 1, 2026, until June 30, 2031." The ordinance keeps the tax on the importation of alcohol and on alternative nicotine products and vaping equipment not already taxed under the city's tobacco chapter. It describes itself as "permanent in nature" and directs that it be written into the code.

The measure extends rather than begins the break, and the break is old. The ordinance's own recital records that the code already suspends the chapter for one year, from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027, on the same terms. Section 4.20.005 as published goes further back, still reading that the city suspends the chapter "from July 1, 2004 until June 30, 2005 in exchange for payment by the North Slope Borough of five hundred thousand dollars," and it carries eight amending ordinances, the earliest from 1998.

Ordinance 03-2026 would raise the city's retail marijuana tax from 8 percent to 10 percent, and it goes to city voters at the Oct. 6 general election. That tax is in a different chapter and is not suspended. The city cites AS 29.45.670, which provides that a new sales and use tax or an increase in the rate of levy "does not take effect until ratified by a majority of the voters at an election." Its text addresses new taxes and rate increases, not suspensions, and the city has applied it to the marijuana increase and not to this one.

Neither the ordinance nor the meeting packet contains a fiscal note. The record carries no estimate of what the suspended tax was raising, what share of city revenue it represented, or what replaces it. The code names a borough payment; the packet does not say whether it still runs. The council appointed a finance director, Maria C. Ortilla, in August.

The public hearing, where residents can speak to the item, is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Thursday in City Chambers.