Public Naming Commission Meeting

All right, you want to get started, Jamie? Yeah, you are recording. Oh man, I'm going to be careful what I'm saying. All right, let's get started. Good evening.

Let's call the, uh, November 12th, 2025 meeting of the Public Naming Commission to order.

Um, Jamie, take roll please.

Um, yes. Chair Hess? Present. Vice Chair Harrison? Present.

Member Gutza?

Present. Member Palm? Uh, present. My name is spelled wrong. Uh-oh.

How do you spell it? S-E-L-M-A-N. Oh. And Member Helm?

President. Chair Ezio Korn. Thank you. Would somebody like to volunteer to read the land acknowledgement?

I can do it. A land acknowledgement is a formal statement recognizing the indigenous people of a place. It is a public gesture of appreciation for the past and present indigenous stewardship of the lands that we now occupy. It is an actionable statement that marks out our collective reverent movement towards decolonization and equity. The Public Naming Commission would like to acknowledge that we gather today on the traditional lands of the Nenaina Athabascan.

For thousands of years, this— the Nenaina have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. It is with gratefulness and respect that we recognize the contributions, innovations, and contemporary perspectives of the Upper Kootenai.

Could I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve the agenda. Moved by Selma. Can I get a second? Harrison will second it.

Thank you. Any opposition to the agenda or any discussion? Any discussion? Any additions to the agenda? Uh, addition the 2026 calendar under new business.

Yes. Okay, any other additions?

Any opposition to the agenda as Amended. Seeing and hearing none, the agenda as amended is approved. Um, can I get a motion to accept the minutes of the October 9th meeting?

Did someone— did you move? Yeah. All right, can I get a second? Heller second. All right, Kevin seconded.

Um, do you all need a minute to look over the minutes, or have you already had a chance to review that?

Any discussion? Um, do we have a motion? We do have a motion to approve, right? Yes. Um, any opposition?

Seeing and hearing none, the minutes are approved. Um, that brings us to 6. Unfinished Business: Indigenous Naming Pathway Policy Consultation Steps. And I believe that is Kevin and Kuhu. Yes it is, yes it is.

Apologies for sending those documents so, so late, but We were able to look at Alberta and Edmonton's naming policy, specifically in how they include Indigenous representation. And I can go through the entire document step by step, or I can also just summarize what jumped up at us for, um, based on the review that we did. Um, what would everyone prefer?

What's your preference?

Okay, I'll just start by like pointing out a few of these like important things. So I have it organized based on the place, so the first one being Alberta. I also included their government's commitment, their policy statement that was made, specifically focusing on the history and the richness of our culture and natural heritage. I really appreciated that, the way they've named that, and why it is important to include Native and Indigenous voices and consultation. Some of the naming restrictions that they have are very similar to the ones that we have.

One of the things that also stood out for me was how they specifically state that, um, Indigenous names and language are intellectual and cultural property of Indigenous nations, and they will not adopt an Indigenous name without documented support from the relevant nations. I also want to point out that they have provincial roles, so they have a Minister for Culture and Heritage, a Minister for Indigenous Relations, and a Minister for Infrastructure. And from what it looks like, the three of them communicate with each other when an Indigenous renaming is proposed, and then they bring it to the Naming Commission, and then it goes to the deciding people. And so what— when they use this Indigenous pathway is 3 different places. One is when a renaming is happening, or a naming is happening on a land that is traditionally recognized as Indigenous nation or federally recognized or it's just a location that shares boundaries with other Indigenous Nation territories.

The second is if the proposal is submitted by an Indigenous Nation. So the way I feel like it would show up for us is if any of our tribal organizations or tribes reached out to us and said, "We would like to propose renaming of this and that." And then the last one is another request from Indigenous governments or organizations, and in this they also mentioned Native corporations and nonprofits that work with or are made up of Indigenous people. And they prioritize the Indigenous renaming proposals that come from Nations and/or organizations and government. And so I have literally copy-pasted: where a nation submits a proposal to name or rename, the proposal will be prioritized on the naming committee agenda. And then they have— I again quoted this— a provincial engagement expectation, which is just an expectation that they have of their public administration, which is to be engaged with Indigenous communities near the geographical feature to determine their position on the proposed name, and to discover any traditional names or knowledge associated with the geographical feature.

Any questions about when the pathways are used before I jump into how they are used?

Okay, so how is they work with their staff, with their new staff, who then reach out to, like I said, they have an Indigenous Relations Office The way I have read it is that their public administration already has a list of people who are knowledge holders, who are language experts, who are representatives from their communities and nations, who then they reach out to and share that they're about to propose a renaming, or this proposal has come to their desk, and then they consult them. And so I have it broken down again, copy-pasted. Staff will work with relevant provincial, federal Indigenous relations offices, existing reconciliation and Indigenous relations frameworks, and local Indigenous organizations to identify Nations, communities, or Indigenous organizations with asserted or recognized connection to the area. And so I think for us, this would look like one of us doing that homework for the committee, for the Commission, and maybe we can kind of play around with what it actually looks like if this is a route we want to take. Something that came up.

In this was that sometimes they've had names or renaming proposed where the nations or the Indigenous communities overlapped. And so they have a specific statement in there which says that the city or the muni will treat multiple nations with overlapping interests equitably and transparently. And the piece that I really liked, and I feel like we talked about this at our last Commission meeting, which was, will not assume a single representative unless confirmed by the nations themselves. And I feel like we had this conversation as well when— oh my gosh, Jenny, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the name of— Faith. Faith, yes.

I was going to say Hope, and I was like, I don't think that's right. Thank you. Yes, Faith. And we kind of talked about that as well, right, is that who's representing, who's choosing who's representing. So that was a piece that really stood out to me.

And then they also go through a public and stakeholder input process. So once they've done the homework of connecting with the right people, they then bring it out to the public. And the things that I noted in here was cultural community stakeholders, and then Indigenous communities within the building's geographical area, and/or organizations representing urban Indigenous people. And that urban Indigenous people seemed to just jump out at me a little bit, and I'm not sure what that could look like for us in Anchorage and what organizations we would partner with for this. But they do have a public input process once they have connected with the representative and come up with a plan, then they get input from the public on it.

In their documents, I think they also talked about how it's It's not about validating whether it's, it's the right culture or not, but just understanding the history and the context of the renaming and the purpose of the name. And so that's much simpler of a process compared to Edmonton. However, Edmonton has more equitable representation. And so I'm just going to jump into that and then maybe we can kind of compare and see what everyone thinks between the two.

Edmonton has a naming advisory, Indigenous naming advisory circle, and it's made up of Indigenous knowledge holders and language keepers, and they co-design the Indigenous naming pathway with the recognized knowledge holders and language keepers, and those come from the network that the Mewmi has or the network that the Commission has, and then they do an outreach of, "We are looking for Indigenous knowledge holders and language keepers to show up and be a part of this Indigenous naming pathway for us." So then they co-design that pathway, and they co-design what it looks like. And then they also go through the Indigenous naming concept that the Commission proposes and provides feedback on whether it's appropriate, whether the meaning really translates to what it should, whether it's accurate. And then they also identify opportunities for Indigenous-led naming initiatives. So some of their circle members will bring up buildings that can be named, or renamed rather, and so that is The other pathway is of this circle not only providing feedback on names and buildings that are proposed, but also proposing if one comes up. And so there is an administration piece, which I just put in there because it was something that was named in their policy, that was appointments, term lengths, honoraria, which I'm not sure what, what that could look like, but honoraria and protocols will be developed in collaboration with the participating Nations, following examples such as Indigenous naming knowledge committees used for ward names in other municipalities.

And then they have an early notification and co-design process. So before accepting or advancing any Indigenous-related naming proposal, their public administration staff will formally notify identified Nations and invite them to confirm interest in participating and identifying appropriate representatives. So opposed to, lol, I also just said lol out loud. Unlike Alberta, they bring in the Indigenous knowledge holders or language experts or nation representatives to be a part of that process and part of the timeline and part of like, is this something we're even interested in doing? Is this something that we even want to discuss?

So there's agency that they empower their Indigenous nations to exercise from the beginning of the process instead of bringing them in halfway through and saying, 'Hey, we would like some feedback.' And so identify appropriate representatives. Oh yes, that's the other piece, is that instead of the muni and the public admin notifying or recognizing who could be on this, in this circle, the nations, the native organizations, the tribes, they are the ones who appoint their representative and say this is the person that we're going to you could reach out to. And then they also have the nations agree with the MUNI to come up with an engagement plan, which has objectives of the naming work, which I really appreciated again, because it had objectives like correcting colonial names, commemorating specific history, and language revitalization. And then they also came up with engagement activities that looks like workshops, naming circles, community surveys, facilitated dialogue. And then they worked on how decisions and consensus will be documented, what that could look like, and then also support available for the Native people representing their communities in this circle.

And then they also have a "What an Indigenous Renaming Proposal Should Include." If you are, and this was a conversation, I think this was a question that came up in our last meeting, was how do we approach a well-meaning, kind-hearted person who is not a part of a Native community in Anchorage but would like to rename? And so this was a piece that stood out for Edmonton as well, where they have a "What should an Indigenous renaming proposal include?" One being an endorsement from the relevant Indigenous government, a meaning and context statement, language of origin, translation, cultural, historical, geographical significance. And then they have pronunciation guidance for public use and media, any protocols or conditions that the nation wishes to attach to said renaming of, you know, this can be used in marketing or educational material or translations. And so If they are a person who's not a part of that community, the Public Naming Commission connected them with the circle that I shared about earlier, the Indigenous Naming Advisory Circle, and then they work on that proposal together. So there's again that piece of exercising their agency.

And so in conclusion, to summarize, To summarize, the pieces that I thought that we could maybe, maybe figure out a way to implement would be, you know, by identifying and inviting our Alaska Native partners, and then maybe we could also consult them on, you know, what could this Indigenous renaming plan look like. And then if we want to, we could engage the public after our Alaska Native partners have had a moment to either endorse or not endorse the renaming, recommend any experts that could be a part of, part of our consultation, and share any other conditions that they may have around, you know, is the name sacred, or should the name be displayed, or what is the cultural, historical, political context of said name. And then they also work with the Public Naming Commission to adopt the signage and interpretation, and that is something I know that we've done in the past and we could do again. And then the City Assembly remains the final decision maker, but it gives strong weight to Indigenous recommendations. At the end of the document that is shared, I have references for all the things that we looked at, including the Reclaiming Indigenous Place Place names by Yellowhead Institute and.

Jamie also shared the brief that I looked at, and I think that if any of us have any extra time in our day, I really recommend at least just perusing through it because it has a lot of important pieces that we could adopt in our work in honouring our Native and Indigenous communities. Around Anchorage. Yeah, there you go. Sorry, I just talked for so long.

Does anybody have any questions for Kuku? No questions. Excellent overview. Thank you for all of your guys' hard work. I appreciate the summary.

You mentioned honoraria, and I thought I'd spend a couple minutes just sharing my experience with that. So in general, council members and language experts and cultural knowledge bearers, in general, there's not like a lot of payment for those volunteer positions that they hold. And so honoraria is usually a way to recognize that their knowledge has value and to pay them for the time that they spent coming to a meeting. But you have to be really cautious about how much you're going to be paying them within a year, because if you go over a certain amount, then you have to 1099 them. And if you 1099 them, it impacts their taxes, and especially with elders, it can impact their eligibility for many different programs that the elder might depend on, like Meals on Wheels or something like that, that's, you know, really important to them.

So it is a balancing act of, you know, we want to pay you to recognize your important knowledge, for coming and spending time with us and sharing that knowledge. But then you also want to be cautious that it's not too much within a calendar year that you have to 1099 them. So it is also kind of a discussion with your accounting people to see when are you going to 1099 people, um, to see what your— like, the municipality's internal processes are.

And then also talking to your partners about what would be an appropriate cost, like what are they used to getting, would be what I would want to share. Thank you. Any other questions for Kevin and Kuku? Any other comments? I just want to say I really love the document.

There's so much in it that we could use here in Anchorage. It's very thorough. I'm really impressed by their process. They put a lot of thought into it. Yeah, I just want to jump in here and hi everyone.

I just, you know what, first please, you go first and then I'll go second. Okay. Oh, thank you, Kevin. That's so nice of you. No, Darrell, thank you so much for recognizing that.

The Reclaiming Indigenous Place Names, the Yellowhead Institute brief that I shared as a supportive document for this. The Edmonton Council actually referred to that quite a bit, and it has such— it has so many important pieces on why Native and Indigenous people should be included in decisions like this around language revitalization, cultural continuity, self-determination, public education. It's just such a brilliant document, and I really recommend just reading that.

And I agree, I saw so many ways that we could incorporate some of these things into our work here, especially as we're so— I think that our nonprofit and public sector is so connected to what we're doing that we might be able to get interested people to be a part of this circle, for the lack of a better word.

I want to leave any response time for anyone who wants to respond to what she just said. Would anyone like to respond to that, have any follow-up questions?

Okay, I'll take that as no. Yeah, I wanted to pop in with that because, you know, I'm always thinking about, all right, what are the questions that we need to kind of ask ourselves and With that, kind of going through the documents and thinking about how that is going to work here maybe in Anchorage, I, you know, when I was thinking, you know, when it comes to kind of traditional place names, you know, there maybe is a priority list of that we kind of mentioned. And so, you know, maybe a top priority if a place is going to be named after its traditional place name that, you know, is Oklutna then going to be the representative of that, you know, of that name? Because, you know, let's just say that we're at— we as a commission, speaking geographically, are in, you know, the Nine Mile Athabascan land. Are we going to then prioritize the Nine Mile Athabascan traditional place names, um, you know, at the top of our list if something's being renamed for that?

And does Oklutna represent the Dena'ina Athabascan people being the federally recognized tribe, and then from there, do they have veto authority if they don't like the name in general? And then when it comes to honoring people, is that going to be the same tier if someone who's not Indigenous is, you know, is saying, hey, we're going to name this place after an elder who did a lot of volunteer work here, and then there's also another a group that is from a non-Indigenous group, or the non-Indigenous people that are saying, hey, this volunteer who's non-Indigenous also did a lot of volunteer work here, we want to name this building after them. Is there going to be a tier-based priority system that we're going to put in place as a, as a commission based on those consultations? So I think we have a lot of good information, and now the next process is going to is going to be us asking, do we make a tier system? Do we make a priority system based on certain criteria that are outweighed?

Um, things like that. So mainly just kind of pondering questions and to get us kind of thinking about what that may look like for ourselves. Any comments or questions or thoughts?

This is Jenny. I did have one thought when I reviewed the materials before the meeting, just something to think about that I have run into when we've tried to do similar types of indigenous naming. If the indigenous name is very long or very complicated, like different guttural sounds, you need to consider what people might shorten it to because as humans, we're lazy, and if the name is too long, we will quite often shorten it instead of respecting the full name. So it might be formally named a long name, and then people shorten it. And so we need to think— I think we should somehow put that into our steps, that if it is a long or complicated Indigenous name, that we consider what people might naturally shorten it to and verify that that shorter name is appropriate, because we certainly wouldn't want people to shorten it and then the short name is like offensive.

As a swear word or a derogatory word. And so it's just kind of, you know, just like when you think about naming a new organization, you want to consider what the acronym will be to make sure the acronym is not a swear word or inappropriate. So just some thoughts on that because people naturally kind of shorten things that are long.

That's a good point. I think it's— yeah, it is human nature and it will happen. Um, any other thoughts or comments, questions?

If not, let's move on to our next item, which is the joint meeting of the Native Village of Eklutna and the Anchorage assembly, which— what is the date again, Cheney? I believe it's 4 PM in this room on a Thursday.

Was it December 11th or 12th? I think so. Yeah, it's December 11th. I have my own laptop. I haven't—.

So it's Thursday, December 11th at 4 PM in this room, correct?

So I believe the Vice Chair and I were going to attend that meeting and invite— so my understanding is we're going to invite the native village of Oklutna to work with us and develop a consultation process.

Am I correct? That, and also making sure that they are aware that they have a valid commissioner seat that hasn't been filled. They have a designated commissioner seat. Well, it's not designated to a Kootenai, but it's a tribe-affiliated. Correct.

So, they are by default posted to the tribe. So, we're going to attempt to recruit a commissioner and invite them to help us develop a consultation process. Um, and I was looking at the calendar. We meet the day before. Do we want to meet after, or are we canceling December's meeting?

Well, that, that was a question I was going to bring up later on. Do we need to meet in December? Do we have any business? We'd say meet middle of December. The only business that I can think of that we have is the hearing back from the health department on maintaining their building.

And I don't believe that's going to happen until after the first of the year. Okay, so that was actually also— we should probably add that under unfinished business too. I totally just thought about that. So I don't know, I don't know if there's any updates on that either. Jenny, do you and I need to talk before the meeting, come up with, uh, some talking points?

Yes, I think that would be good, and I am available in person for that date. Um, I think bringing, you know, the work that they have done already to the meeting would be good and just share, you know, the information that they've gathered would be good to share with the community. Um, I also wanted to mention that regarding skipping the December meeting, um, we were supposed to meet with like Parks and Rec at some point this fall, and we have not met with them. And so I'm wondering if, um, if we have a meeting where we don't have any action items, maybe that would be a good meeting to invite the Parks and Rec people so that we can get to know each other. Sure, I can do that.

I actually— her name popped up on my Outlook calendar today to schedule a meeting with Parks and Rec and the commission. So we will invite Parks and Rec to come to the December meeting.

Should—. I was just wondering, for the December meeting, I mean, should we also potentially take that time to go through the talking points or kind of brainstorm together as a group, you know, um, maybe some ideas on how we are thinking about naming things or maybe come up with some suggestions, you know, if they maybe don't have any. I'm sure they have a formal consultation process already, you know, that they, that they put together and that they— that's, you know, that they use very regularly. But, um, if you wanted to chat about it as a group, that would also be a good time for us to be able to do that. And also too, if you and Jenny wanted like emotional or, you know, physical support while there, um, and you wanted us to be that meeting the next day.

Um, I believe I would be around, but I would leave that up to both of you if you feel like you'd want more commission members there for representation and joining the new business or something like that. The meetings— it's a public meeting. It would be great if more commissioners showed up.

But Jenny, I see you kind of nodding your head. Are you thinking like on—. Yeah, this—. On that meeting before, we should maybe chat as a group about the talking points that we're going to maybe have for the Iklipa Tribe. Right, so, um, yeah, I think we should definitely discuss like what we're going to present, but they probably want handouts beforehand, so we probably want to discuss that now of like what do we put in the meeting packet.

Um, and I kind of thought that your, um, recommendations were a good meeting packet kind of thing, but also you could reference the other things because I don't know, I'm always transparent, just share everything that I know. Um, and I also wanted to say, uh, the more the merrier. I don't think it hurts to have more people, um, in the room if people are available because a question might come up and we'll be like, oh, I didn't— I don't know, I didn't actually read the Edmonton stuff, or I didn't actually read the, um, you know, details that you and, uh, Cuckoo read.

I think we also need to get an idea of how long we have. I suspect we'll have 5 minutes or less. It's normally a pretty packed agenda, so I will work on finding out our time on the agenda. Okay, and that definitely moves us more towards the— these were the recommendations that our team came up with after reviewing these other documents, you know, just the bullet points that they had at the end of their document about the recommendations. You know, we might want to keep it, you know, just to that then instead of the overview.

Um, but definitely want to make sure we add the SEED because we want to split our time between talking about, hey, we want to work with you to develop the protocol for naming Indigenous naming, but it's really— we really want someone to be able to have a seat. And I, I did want to ask Jamie if Faith had submitted anything or if anyone else had submitted anything from the Klutna. So the mayor's office manages commission memberships, and so I don't have any insight into that at all. I apologize.

I also wonder if maybe they're kind of waiting for us to maybe have this meeting and have a little bit more information and gather that and see if it's spending some of their administrator's time or whatever representative's time that they have join once a month. Um, you know, so I think maybe this is kind of an exploratory meeting to see if this is, if this is something that they're gonna kind of put in front as a priority. I, I guess just, uh, thinking about it like if I was a person that didn't know anything about the Public Meeting Commission, um, and you guys were going to present in front of me for 5 minutes. Um, I think we should plan to do like 1 or 2 minutes of, this is what the Public Naming Commission does, this is why it, why it was created or recreated, or, you know, whatever. This is like the purpose.

And then 2 minutes, 1 to 2 minutes on, these are the recommendations after we've researched, you know, what Canada is doing to include Indigenous names. And then, you know, the last minute to be like, by the way, you guys have a seat, and we'd really like to have someone that you put forward to serve on our commission. So just, just looking at a 5-minute window, that's— I think we should hit those 3 things.

Sounds good to me.

It sounds like you kind of got it all good to go.

All right, any other thoughts on the, uh, joint meeting on the 12th of December?

Jenny, when did you want to maybe put the meeting minutes together? Is that something that you want to do alone? Is that something you want to do here, or do you feel like doing that maybe in a, like, in an off time, and then we we like, maybe you send it out for approval or something ahead of time. I'm not sure, what are you thinking to kind of like finalize the minutes and what that looks like to get that over to Iklugan? Oh, um, I guess I was thinking to cut off the recommended section, um, the back, the last page section, um, and make that like your first thing for the second part of the speech, and then just have all the other documents that you've researched as like attachments.

But, um, you know, it might help to have maybe 3 speakers, um, you know, someone, um, like Daryl or even the council person, uh, I can't remember his name, that has come, um But I do think it's important that we, that we succinctly and shortly say the purpose of the Public Naming Commission. And that might not be me speaking, um, it might be like Daryl or, you know, someone that has a little bit more history. Yeah, a little bit more history of why this got created and why the vision of the commission And then the 1 to 2 minutes of here's our recommendations, that could be Kevin or Kuku. And then the last minute of like, hey, we really want someone to come join us, you know, that could be me because I've already kind of been doing that with Kate and reaching out to them. So it doesn't have to be like the same person talking the whole time.

Maybe we split it up by who has, you know, the expertise in those.

Three topics. I like that idea. Like the idea of Kevin or Kuku speaking to those recommendations.

They did the research. Available. We both— I mean, you just said you were available, but yeah, I'm available as well. Um, and that sounds like the entire agenda right there. So if we just wanted to put that on paper and approve it.

Sorry, so where did we land on the meeting before we meet with Iklugna? So our meeting, our regularly scheduled meeting, is the day before, December 11th. Right, okay. And we're hoping that Parks and Rec will be there. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. So there would be two agenda items. There would be Parks and Rec's get-to-know-you kind of session, and then the second agenda item would be, okay, here's our little spiel of who's going to say what. Um, and so we should kind of work on that and get it into our meeting packet so that people have something to look at before the 10th.

Of just the, the 3 parts that I talked about. Okay, so our goal is—. I can start that. Okay, I can draft something as far as the background of the commission and the purpose.

And so we just add, you know, what Darryl wants to say and then what Kuku and Kevin want to say, and then what I'll say about joining us, um, so that, you know, there's 3 little paragraphs, just a couple sentences each, since we might not have any much time. But I guess Daryl will research how much time we have. Yes, I will find out how much time we have. Um, I just submitted a request to Jasmine and Faith and asked— I said you would appreciate 10 to 15 minutes. Good.

Oh, yeah. We make it a longer amount of time. That allows Q&A too. Because I think you could spend more time on the vision and your recommendation than 1 to 2 minutes. I don't think I need more than 2 minutes to say, please come join us.

You can sit right next to me. I'll help you. Please come. But that time also is allotted for Q&A too if they have any questions. I think that's the issue if we only have 5 minutes, I suspect there There will be multiple questions from Eklutna and from assembly members.

Because this will be our first actual presentation in the Unity office. All right, well, I think we have a plan. So any other— anything else on that topic? Yeah, I just want to say I just was reviewing, um, sorry, I just— I, um, I'm actually on vacation this week and I had— and I deleted my work email off my phone, but I was checking it just to make sure I'd be here. It looks like I have been scheduled for a department retreat on the 8th, 9th, 10th— 8th, 9th, and 10th.

So I will be available for the meeting, but not to be in person the following day at the 11th, because I'm also going to be gone the 11th as well, because it's going to be uptown. But yeah, so I won't be there for us to be able to meet with them, but I will be there for a regularly scheduled meeting.

Ah, sorry, Kevin. I'm so sorry, I keep doing this to you. Go ahead. No, I'm done. That's all I had to say.

I was wondering if maybe for the— based on the review section that we have, the recommendations, we boil it down to maybe two that are of the most, the ones that really stand out to us, the ones that we really want to iterate in that meeting to also promote that this seat exists or maybe tie it into why this seat needs to be filled. And so that becomes, that becomes a part of your ask of having someone also take up that seat. Instead of it being, these are our recommendations, it could be a, we have a seat open because based on our review we've seen these things and you really could help us achieve this vision that we have. Yeah, and then have an actual deliverable out of it too, maybe at that point. So, "Help us welcome Susanna." More like a sales pitch.

I get where you're going.

Um, could Jamie or Daryl find out when is the deadline to get stuff into their meeting packet? Um, because they probably have some sort of meeting packet deadline that they need something In—. It's 7 days. 7 Days. Okay.

Yeah, I just want to say too, not to— because I do want to bring in— because we're gonna— we're not really— we're kind of wanting to— we're doing two things. I see we're pitching to, to them to say like, hey, you know, we really would love someone to take over, to take this seat, because this is here for you, we would love the representation. But also kind of, we're all— the second part of this is we're wanting to find out what their consultation process is like with that. And so I think just making sure, because we've done the research and, you know, there's, you know, there are different ways to be able to engage, but not necessarily having the meeting just a clarify that our time is taken to, you know, to talk about, hey, this is how we— this is how we see things with, you know, people that are not from the area and people that, you know, traditionally from the area and, you know, the Dena'ina Athabasca people. Like, this is mainly just about recruiting someone for a seat and also finding out what their consultation process is because we plan to and want to engage them in the future.

Um, so I kind of see two different ideas of what we kind of want to necessarily get out of like presenting to, to them. Is that a good understanding? Just so I, just so I understand.

And that's more of a question for everyone. I just want to make sure I'm understanding what kind of the main objectives are of that. No, I think that's a really good point that we should come into the meeting with These are things that we've found out about other indigenous cultures, but we would like to know what your consultation process is because, you know, they might not want to do a circle or they might have a totally different, you know, idea. So yeah, we definitely want to come in with, these are research we've gathered, but we're here to listen to what you'd like. To share with us about this, about naming?

Any other thoughts? Well, I was just— I wanted to ask, is that what everyone else also felt? Is it— was that— is that the same for everyone else? Is that— is that clear for everyone else? I guess just to make sure, you know, we're on the same page with that.

Yes, yes. Yeah, I'm just pretty thirsty. Good. Where am I signed? I thought really the main purpose of us attending the meeting was to invite them to work with us in developing a consultation process for the commission.

Well said.

All right, anything else on this topic?

If not, we'll go to our new business, which is our 2026 calendar. And I believe that is our meeting calendar we're going to talk about. Yeah, we made an annual calendar and passed it last meeting. Just so far, I just Right, and that has like what you do each particular month, but do you all still— is it still possible for everyone to meet the second Wednesday of the month from 4 to 6? Does that, does that time frame still work?

It works for me, was my question. Works for me unless there's a holiday. Would that then be the following day or the day before? You would have to reschedule it. Ah.

It works for me.

It currently works for me, but I cannot speak for what my spring is going to look like. Um, but I really appreciate.

Appreciate how accommodating this commission has been to allow me to join virtually. And so I think that— I don't think— I don't foresee it being an issue, is what I'm saying, even if my schedule changes. All right, so it looks like we will for now maintain our meeting schedule going into 2026.

With guidance of the annual calendar. Pardon me? With guidance of the annual calendar that we passed last meeting. What about? I keep— With guidance, guidance being the lead direction of what each month should focus on.

Correct, correct. We adopted that calendar as far as our business, how we conduct the business. I just, I don't know if Kevin looked at that or had a chance to look at that. Okay. I did.

It was beautiful. Thank you. So any member comments?

Um, I should probably share that I am still looking for work, um, and you should know that, um, a few of my pending applications, a few places that I've interviewed for may require me to spend time outside of Anchorage, and I don't know if I'm actually going to be moving or if I will be kind of going there and coming back. So I do think at some point I might have to talk about, you know, what is the, like, residency requirement to remain on this commission. But I don't currently have any job offers, but I just wanted to make sure you guys were aware that, um, there might be an issue with my residency. So the code requires that to serve on a municipal border commission, you must be a resident of the municipality. So if your primary residence is still here, even if you're working out of town temporarily and can, can, you know, join us remotely, yes, you can still serve on the commission.

It's for your primary residences. There's a lot of people who serve on boards and commissions that end up phoning in and are joining teams from out of state or, you know, out of Anchorage. So that's, you know, depending on the situation, you could still be a member.

All right, I'll let you know as soon as I know anything. I just wanted to, during member comments, give you guys a heads up. Thank you, Jen. Any other comments? I'm also on the same boat as Jennifer, but I'm hoping to stay in Anchorage.

Gotta love the job market. All right, anything else? Anybody? Going, going, gone. Audience participation?

Oh, no audience.

Can we get a motion to adjourn?

Somebody else. I will move. I will second it.

Kevin seconded. Any opposition? Thanks, Kevin. We are adjourned. See you in December.

Thanks everyone, have a great evening.