AERC Commission Meeting - August 2025

All right, awesome. Sorry about that, everyone who's just joining us. We did not hit record for the beginning, but we have approved the meeting and we have just introduced Eva Gardner and Annemarie Billingsley from the Municipal Attorney's Office and Human Resource Director, respectively. Thank you. And I also oversee the Criminal Division, which is municipal prosecution.

Those are the prosecutors who pursue misdemeanors within the municipality, and The Municipal Attorney's Office is a creation, you know, of municipal charter, which is basically our Anchorage Constitution. You know, in order to change that, it has to be changed by the voters. So Municipal Attorney is created in charter, much like the commission, and we are charged with providing counsel to the entire municipal government. So, you know, collectively my office is supposed to advise all the boards and commissions, the assembly, all the municipal departments, the mayor's office, and that's a lot of different things. And so what we do, and this is something that is approved by, you know, legal ethics and is standard in the profession, when we have different attorneys appearing in different ways with clients within the municipality whose interests might be adverse.

We put up ethical walls. They aren't allowed to share information, talk to each other about it, and we have a lot of experience with that. So anyway, just some ground setting. So I'm here today in my role as municipal attorney, counsel for the entire government, to answer some— I understand there's some questions about the recent hiring process and how the Commission's hiring process should work in the future, what powers you have. So I'm here to help hopefully provide some clarity on that.

What, you know, what your authority is and what, what you can do if you want to do things differently. And Annemarie is here in her capacity as HR Director. She'll introduce herself, but she's here to talk about, you know, nuts and bolts of municipal, being part of the municipal HR employment system, you know, position descriptions. So she'll get into that. I don't know if we should do intros and then go into more, but yeah, I think, uh, I'm Annemarie Billingsley.

I'm the Human Resources Director and I'll kind of give you the level setting that Eva just gave. So Human Resources, we're in the middle of a reorganization, so it's going to look a little bit differently, but we have a payroll division and a benefits division.

They're kind of— they stand at— so payroll, benefits, and then we also have labor. Labor is the division that investigates complaints. They deal with the collective bargaining agreements and interpret provisions in the collective bargaining agreements, deal with grievances and potentially arbitrations as those get challenged. And then we have 3 other divisions: Records, Employment, and Classifications.

Employment are the ones tasked with posting a job description, They manage the postings, they move, they make job offers, and they manage all of the processes of getting people on board into the municipality. Classifications— so we have a classification system which classifies every job in the municipality, and the classifications ensure that we are basically paying people, people consistently and appropriately for the work that they're doing across the municipality. So we have something called class specs attached to each job, and those class specs mandate what the minimum requirements are for different, um, positions. And they kind of give a pretty broad brush, like in human resources, we have like a Human Resources Professional 5, and at a level 5 you should be doing the— it doesn't specify like handling payroll, but it's this caliber of work, this type of assignment, as opposed to a 4 who handles less and gets paid less accordingly. So we have a whole classification system that our classifications folks deal with, and classifications and employment overlap pretty heavily.

So before you can post a job description, you have to have a— you have to have two components. You have to have a position description and Once you have a— the position description is actually specific to that PCN and what that job is going to do. And so the position description is different than the class spec. The class spec is very broad brushed. The same class spec can apply in different departments.

You know, we have admin officers or junior admin officers. Those are all across the Muni, and we're just making sure that there is consistency in their pay and level of responsibilities and duties. The position description is very specific to the position that that you're trying to recruit for and fill. Information from the class spec goes into the position description. So they work hand in hand, and employment and classifications work hand in hand.

So once we have posted a position, we can't make changes to it unless you pull it down and send it back to classification, and classifications then can edit it, and then it goes back over to employment who then reposts it. So there, it's a process that's coordinated. We have coordinators that's actually their title in these divisions that kind of help that work a little ideally seamlessly. And then we have a records division that actually then makes sure that everything is entered into your personnel file, that we have— does the— your badges and your I-9 verification and all of the steps with making you an official uni employee that you're pay is keyed in correctly into our SAP program. And that records person also works pretty closely with the employment and classifications folks.

And then we also have a compliance piece. So we have our ADA coordinator who also is in charge of compliance. And so if there's an accident where a municipal employee may, or if there's reasonable suspicion, we do all of the drug testing and things like that. That he has some other compliance functions that, that he does. And we have Director of— I don't know what Ron's title is, he made it up, but—.

Organizational Development. Organizational Development. And he runs all of our statistics and data. So, you know, if we're trying to figure out how many seasonal employees we have and what are our trends, and so that we can look at some of that and try to make improvements across the whole muni, not HR-specific. And he breaks things up based on bargaining unit and can also lend support to other departments as they're trying to analyze things, trends, and, hey, I can't figure out why we're unable to keep, you know, this particular job filled.

Is there some data that can help answer that to help make these problems? And so that's our department as a whole. Awesome. So before we jump any further, does anybody have any questions related to their introduction? Any questions about the class spec versus position description?

Did everyone kind of understand what those mean? Awesome. Okay. All right. So my main message tonight of talking to you about your role is one of really like empowerment and agency.

So the Commission is created in charter. Pretty simple. It says there's a commission devoted to, you know, ensuring equal rights. It can hire and fire with— hire with the approval of the mayor and fire executive director. And, you know, that's pretty much all it says.

Like, it also says its duties should be set by ordinance by the assembly. So then the assembly charter, again, we can't change that. You'd have to put it on a ballot in an election to change any of that. But the assembly then does have the ability to build on that in code. And so they can— they have expanded in code on what the commission's duties are and what your powers are.

And I assume you've all read the code section, but some of the highlights, right, it talks about you can— so it has like Title 5, 10.040. You can develop programs, you investigate complaints, you could administer oaths, and you have subpoena powers. You can enter into agreements, you have some contracting, right, power. You do complaints, you can hire your executive director, you can hire administrative staff, Things like that. So those are all listed.

You also have a, you know, specific— there's a section on legal counsel. It says the municipal attorney is supposed to represent the Commission in all cases except where the municipality is a party. You know, if the municipality is being accused of a discriminatory practice, you should not have somebody from the municipal attorney's office representing, you know, you in that.

And we, we honor that, and you have the ability to employ, it says, temporary legal counsel for proceedings, you know, in those circumstances. And then I will say layered on top of that, the Municipal Attorney's Office separately does have the ability to retain outside counsel. So if there's a request, you know, to retain outside counsel for another purpose that isn't contemplated within your standalone powers, you can come to us and we can work with you on that. But really, like, you are intended to be pretty independent, right? You don't report to anybody except yourselves.

And so if something in your process— you still do still have to operate within legal requirements, so you have to follow code. For example, we do have to follow the classification system, or a classification system, which is— just to provide some background, legal background on Annmarie's comments. It sounds very bureaucratic, right? It sounds very technical and you're like, wow.

Why do we have to do all of that? In Charter, there's a Bill of Rights that tells everyone what their rights are, and there is actually— it's kind of fascinating— alt— everyone has the right, whether as a taxpayer, as a municipal employee, or both, to a comprehensive personnel classification and procedure system created by ordinance and based upon merit. So one of the— you can do whatever you want with, within, you know, legal bounds for hiring, but you do have legal requirements placed on you, and HR kind of provides that as a support service for you by using their systems to do that. So I just want to make that clear. But when it comes to specifically, you know, the hiring of the executive director, it's up to you to decide your own process.

And I know that there have been questions and some concerns about, you know, how it went before, possibly stemming largely from a lack of clarity over roles, responsibilities, process. And I think the one way to look at that is this is an opportunity to take all the lessons you've learned and all the thoughts you have brewing in your heads right now and develop a process that, you know, complies with legal requirements, and we're happy to advise on that, reduces the risk of any kind of discriminatory or disparate treatment of applicants, ensures that it is, you know, a merit-based process. But you can write up whatever you want for your procedure and then have that, you know, the next time you have to hire an executive director, or, you know, future commissions can have that as a reference. And so my hope is that we can, you know, help you develop that as you go forward. And I think I would just add, um, so we have this classification system which is required by code, and, um, we're really careful with it because it is what structures the entire municipality.

And so we will get requests, okay, can I just change this or take this out? And the answer is usually no. Um, we have the classification system that we have, and anytime we tinker with anything, it it has lots of unintended consequences. So we're, we're really guarded around this system because it keeps everything equalized across the municipality.

There's this classification system is also tied into PERS, our retirement, and so if we delete classifications or we end up with PERS liability, and so it's actually a complicated system. And then as, as Eva was saying, it, it's a little bit, it's like a little bit of like a black box sort of thing where you put in a position description and out pops, this is a 14 or a 15, and it has to all match up into our system. And it's based on the language that's in the position description that determines where in the classification system you fit. And so if you want to switch somebody into a different classification, you start with their position description, which then dictates where they land in the classification structure. And supervisors have abilities to modify their position descriptions to accurately reflect the work that their employees are doing.

And that happens regularly as people leave. And when somebody gets rehired, often there's a, I want to clean this up in the position description. That's, that's where you have the most flexibility and ability to change things. The class specs are much harder to change.

So if it's all right, I'd like to spend a bit of time for us to discuss what we'd like to see in the next— what we would like this new process to look like. Some things that we learned from the last one: we do have the ability to set our own interview questions. It was unfortunate it went down the way it did the last time, but we do have that ability. How do we do that? Do we have to present that ahead of time?

How do we set up to ensure we're asking the questions we want? So I guess I should just also add that HR is here to support you all and to take what you— the process that you create for yourselves and fit it in with our processes. And so there's— you'll have an employment specialist who will work with you or whoever is designated as your hiring manager to— well, I guess I should also back up to say for an executive appointment, you can also— there's different rules for if you're having a represented employee versus an executive. And with an executive, you have a little bit more flexibility. You have the ability to post a job and interview applicants, and we'll put those into our system and screen them and ensure that the applicants are legally authorized to work in the United States and pass our, our threshold requirements.

We'll handle your background check information, send fingerprinting if necessary, we can do drug testing if necessary. There's a whole process that we can employ in that regard. For executives, you also have the ability to do a direct hire and not have it competed. Um, what does that mean? What is that?

Oh, basically, uh, one path is you post it on, you know, the municipal website. It goes through the usual system. It's an open recruitment where anybody can apply, right? As long as they meet the qualifications, they can be considered to some degree. A direct hire is like, you go out and you're like, there are 3 people in the state who know how to do this.

I'm going to go talk to all 3 of them and see if they can come in. That's just one option that you have. That's just an option for executive hires. With that said, I mean, if you don't do it properly, you could still— somebody could sue you, right? You could be exposing yourself to liability if you do it in a way that is not proper or has, you know, like illegal ramifications like discrimination.

And if we're talking about liability, if we have understood— well, I'm under the belief that the last process was not clean. It was not done correctly. I made a statement on the record and it has been acknowledged on the record by our chair last meeting that mistakes were made. What is the process for correcting a mistake? I'm a little confused as to why we're jumping into the next process when we haven't even really understood the previous process.

And now I'm hearing some of the explanations on what it was supposed— or what is to occur, and I'm like, that did not happen. So I'm confused because now we're getting— we had asked about a process at the beginning of this, and we did not get these answers. We did not get response. And now we're getting them to go forward And we're ignoring what happened in this last process. And I want to know, how do we resolve this?

Is something— is this what we normally do in the municipality when we find something that's gone awry? Do we just step and say, we'll fix it going forward, or are we going to go back? Because this is really becoming very strange to me. So I want to make just a gentle reminder that the purpose of this discussion presented to the commission is how we're going to handle the next step. To look back is a little bit off topic, so I can entertain a little bit of conversation around that, but we can't go into detail on this.

Last time you made a motion to go into it and it wasn't seconded. You could make a new motion to address it in a different way, um, but otherwise I want to be respectful of the topic and the rest of the commission, so We can talk a little bit about this, but we do have to stay on topic.

And if I can, I can attempt to respond to that, which is not everything happens right the way in hindsight that you would have liked it to happen, and that is just generally true in life and in the municipality and everywhere. When looking back though, there are mistakes that— if mistakes were made, not all mistakes have a remedy, not all mistakes need a remedy, not all mistakes indicate legal impropriety or legal liability. And so I, you know, I have reviewed your complaints. I met with you. I spoke with, um, the chair.

I watched all of the meetings, including, you know, the executive session. And looking at it, I saw, you know, definitely lack— some lack of clarity, some misunderstanding, mainly about what, you know, your powers were in hiring, what process you could you could impose, right? What process you could implement. And so looking at that, I saw, oh, this is something where coming up with a process, having better clarity, you know, better information about what your role is, can prevent it in the future. But looking back, I didn't see legal impropriety.

I didn't see anything that was contrary to code or charter or other legal things. So that's just my kind of summary version there. And, but that's why, you know, we're here to try to take those lessons learned and help you come up with a process that you would be comfortable with using in the future. What would be really helpful, I think, is your insight into that and bringing those points up. Like, for example, when we talked about who should be involved in the hiring process, we had two individuals who were very commanding in that process, and so just, we weren't sure what to do, so we just kind of went with what they said.

And I think that's what we're trying to figure out. Who gets to be in the hiring panel? How do we come up with the questions? Um, when applicants are screened, what criteria are they screened against? There were a couple folks that I think you brought up that you thought should have been brought before us and never made it, and we weren't sure why they were— didn't make it.

So we're just trying to get some transparency on that process. Um, so for me, I think those are the main points for me. Who's on the panel? How do we come up with the questions? How do we ensure that our applicants are getting Yeah, and on that, I think the answer to the first question, who's on the panel, is who you set on the panel.

You have the.

Ability, I mean, under code to make standing committees. You can also make, you know, ad hoc committees. So you can empower a hiring committee if you want to do it as an entire committee. You know, the whole commission could do all interviews and also reviewing, or you could empower a committee to whatever extent you want to empower them. Like, oh, you should get the job posted, or you should solicit applications, then bring them all back, or you should solicit them and review them, and then, you know, give us your top 3.

So it can look like whatever you want to look. Have it look like. Annemarie might have more thoughts. And I would say typically we recommend, or for the executive process is a little bit different, but we typically want at least 3 people so that you can have about— when you're, when we, when you post it for an open recruitment, we typically require 3 people so that you can have the balanced, you get, you get a more balanced swath of opinion.

2 People on the hiring committee. On the hiring committee. And part of what you were asking about was how you get all of the applicants. So HR does screen applicants to ensure that they meet the minimum qualifications. Those minimum qualifications are set in the class specs.

They're not ones that we can make up, or, um, you know, if it requires a degree and certain experience that's the minimum qualification that goes into the posting. The postings have knockout questions, so if you write that you're not— if you check the no when to the question, are you legally authorized to work in the United States, you're going to get knocked out and you're not going to get referred. There's a question about crimes that's a knockout question. There's, there's 3 automatic knockout questions, but then if you don't meet the minimum qualifications, you're not going to get referred. And, and the way that we assess meeting of the minimum qualifications, you have to have posted your experience in the answers to the application, and the employment specialist needs to be able to look at your answers and say, "Okay, I see 4 years of experience doing this work." You've listed it, you've explained it, and there's typically a question that will say, "Please explain where you have this experience," if it's in a minimum qualification.

We take those class specs and build a requisition to ensure that we are getting applicants that are qualified. And so if you say, oh, I know of 11 people that applied for this position, why did we only get 5? Or, you know, it's largely because either they answered no to one of the knockout questions or they didn't meet the minimum qualifications. Also, sometimes you'll get duplicate applications. People will apply more than once and the second one or the first one will get knocked out as a duplicate.

And so we'll take the most recent applicant if there are multiple multiple responses to the same posting. There's also a mechanism for your oversight, so if you say I want to see all of the applicants, the ones that you have screened out that didn't meet the minimum qualifications, we have a, a rater process where you can see them, but you can't act on them unless you take the whole batch and then have your scoring panel of at least 3 people go through and analyze whether they actually met the minimum qualifications or not. So you— and that's opt— that's the hiring manager's option. So some hiring managers say, I'd rather have HR screen this and only send me the top 5, or send me the 5 that HR determined met the minimum qualifications because I don't have time to go through and read all of these applications and match up the stuff. And that's what HR does.

But there are others who have more nuanced engineering degree or some sort of field that HR might not be the best person to assess whether this is a closely related degree or is comparable experience to what the class spec is requiring. And then we have this Rater program where we'll send you all of them, but you have to fill out this spreadsheet and do all— we have the notation, and that's for our own liability purposes about why then it's on the hiring manager to be able to defend the decision to take somebody that was a no and move them to a yes, and there's a process for that. So I have a question on that. So if somebody didn't make the applicant pool, they have the right to kind of go and talk to HR to say, hey, why didn't I? So sometimes the individual person can call and say, what happened here?

And HR can look at it and say, you answered no to this question and therefore you weren't— you were deemed to not have met the— you were either knocked out or, or you were deemed to have not met the minimum qualifications. Go ahead. So I'm going to go back on the hiring committee. That can be just ERC people? It can be whoever you want.

We would just recommend that it be 3. Let's talk about that for a quick second, but you had a question. Oh wait, okay. So, um, when we hire the director, it is— we're hiring it, but I believe it is with the approval of the mayor. Um, does that mean the mayor has the ability to say, I want a person on this hiring panel, or could we say, no, we're going to give you someone and then you can approve that person?

Um, that's what I think the question we're asking here. Yeah, I don't think there's any obligation for you to include in your hiring process, you know, a mayor, mayoral representative. I think my understanding is that that has been historical past practice, and that's why it was, you know, proposed and done here. Um, but it's not something that I am aware of being a requirement. What about the assembly?

Do they have the ability to put someone on that hiring? I don't know. They can change code if they really want someone on there, so they could legislate that ability, that requirement, but it's not currently in code. I think kind of the message is, is that we really do own that process beginning to end. We can choose who's on it, we can choose how we do that.

So that's something we should be able to own.

Trying to think of the best way to write this up though. I'll probably work with our secretary on that and we'll build something to present at the next one. We are coming close on time, so I want to make sure Antavia has some time to ask her question. Okay, I just have one other point of clarity, something that I feel adamant about, is that if we have 3 people from ERC that are going to be doing the interviews, I would like them to consistently do all of the interviews. We cannot have a rotation, and I think that's something that's equitable.

So, um, that would be a strong recommendation that I would have because I'd want the same 3 people. And that's typically how if It would be for the— for a single recruitment, you would have the same hiring panel. And typically you would ask the same questions and you would approve them in advance. You don't have to go through HR. You can create your own questions.

We're happy to opine on them or give you suggestions or things if you want our support, but they're your questions. They're your— and you could run them by legal too if you were worried that they were—. And one thing, I mean, what we could do is if you want, like, we can work with you. You could prepare a draft resolution that's like, hey, the commission, you know, for future recommends this process and you can work on it and see what you want to do and then propose it to the commission and then you'll have it for posterity after having a lot of good thoughts. I just have one clarifying question.

So the supervisor, in this case it would be Jen, can go and ask to have those, the other, the job descriptions of the people that she supervises, she can have those looked at for potential reclassification? Well, so you would— right, the position description needs to accurately reflect the work that your employees are doing. And so you— supervisors all the time update their position descriptions, and then when they're updated, we send them through classifications, who then says this is a significant amount more work, this belongs in a different classification.

Speaking from personal experience, you know, some of the position descriptions in my office date back to, like, several decades, right? Yeah. And that was one of the concerns that I had is that their—. Yeah. Since we're looking at, you know, taking on the task of the secretary role, especially for meeting monthly, it's just a lot for— I'm just putting a little bug in everyone's ear on that.

It's a lot. So, um, thank you so much for coming and talk to us. I know you guys have families and friends and lives to work. This means a lot to us. This has been a really hard process for us, and you guys are doing here right now is monumental for it.

So thank you very much. Um, I think we have some homework for Jen. I think we want you to— I think one of the things we've been requesting is the position descriptions of the folks who work here for review. If it would be possible to get that for next meeting so we can kind of go through those together and make sure that they're appropriately classified and make sense. And, Tabea, there was something else you were asking for at the last one, and I'm sorry, I can't remember what it was.

I know, but I think that's all. All right. So I'll work with Kevin after this. Just the two of us will kind of chat and see what we can do to write up maybe a first draft at what this could look like. I'll bring this to the next meeting and then we can talk about it as a group.

Um, I, if that works for everyone, I don't want to dictate that's for the team, but I kind of feel it might be better if we have.

Skeleton to work off of rather than just an open discussion. Have any other views on that?

All right. So let's move on to— thank you both. Yeah, thank you for having us. Also, thank you all for your service. Before I came to the community, I was in private practice, and independent, like, agencies like this make such a difference in terms of access to just Thank you all for your service.

Thank you all. So our next item of the agenda is Executive Director report.

You can do it. Last time I ate up about 45 minutes of our meeting going through the Executive Director report. So I'm not going to be doing that. Um, a couple things I'd like to highlight, and then I think what I'll do is answer any questions that anyone may have. Um, as you can see, it's a little tweaked even from the last time.

So as we go through our processes and look at data and things in a new way, I'll be continuing to, to make updates that make information, uh, clear for you. The first thing that I really want to bring to everyone's attention, um, sounds like next meeting is going to be big too, is that, uh, when I found out that the MUNI was doing— well, first I found out that it was our 50th anniversary, and then a day later I found out that it was the MUNI's 50th anniversary, and then the day after that I found out that I had to give our events to the MUNI by the next day in order to get, uh, it on the schedule. So didn't have time to consult with the Commission, so I thought that easiest thing to do would be to publish our already existing October meeting so that we could have it as sort of a showcase meeting. You all can make the agenda look like whatever might be good to invite the public to and have them see the work of the Commission, and then whatever else you all want to do during that time. So, uh, do you want to have an open house in the area?

Do you want to have cake cutting? Are there specific groups you want to invite? Do you want a different space in this building or maybe in another building, um, whatever you think would be best. This did go, as I mentioned, on the mayor's— I was really proud that in the mayor's letter that went out about the MUNI anniversary, she had room for about 10 things that she highlighted, and ours made the list, and I was really excited about that. So it was on her list that went out, and it's on the MUNI webpage as well.

So hopefully that can be a topic at our next meeting, or we can discuss even between then. We don't have a lot of money, but we definitely could like buy a cake and make some flyers, get some decorations. We could definitely squeeze that out if necessary. Any questions about that particular— I think it's really exciting. To be included in all of that.

I do think we're going to need a section between then and now. We've got the items and the removed in the agenda. We've got to plan something for that.

Does anyone want to make a motion for that, or do we want to try and just wing it next meeting? I think it's a lot to try and just wing it. Can I make a proposal that we have a subcommittee that helps with the 50th anniversary? Okay.

So we're not all— We could do that. Unless everybody wants to join in.

Thoughts from our folks online? I'll second that motion. Okay. Now, making a motion we do it as a subcommittee, the 50th anniversary planning. All right.

Yeah, I'll call that to a vote then with a first and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? All right, the ayes have it. So, this is our first subcommittee since the last time we kind of did this. So, what I want to make sure is we have a solid charter for this committee, what they're doing, what they're going to be reporting back to us. Doreen?

I will be happy to chair. Yeah, that's the thing. Thank you. All right. Who wants to join the party?

Party planning. Well, I will definitely be there. We'll find the party. Okay. All right.

Doreen, one more person. My boss, my old boss actually helped with the unification 50 years ago. Really? Really? That's exciting.

Yeah, Joe Josephson.

Heather, May, Ryan, Kevin, any of you guys able to volunteer some time for this subcommittee? I don't think I'll have the time.

May and Heather?

My schedule is pretty packed right now, so I'm going to have to decline. I think we'll be okay. All right. I think we're going to be fine with 2 folks. They'll reach out if they need a third.

Jen is also going to be on it, and she is—. Yes. Probably the office staff, I imagine. Very excited. So that's awesome.

If it's possible, can we email that charter out and kind of what we want with that before, I don't know, like a week or so? Is that enough time? All right, I'm putting it in my calendar. Okay, sorry, what was— what are you asking for? Can we build a charter and email that out to everyone?

That way just everyone sees it, you know, because I think that's one of the things we've really been struggling with is what does subcommittee do? How do they report back to us? We did look at that last time, and every subcommittee needs to have a charter. This is gold. This is new.

So, all right.

What other highlight items do you want to bring up? [Speaker] Well, I wanted to answer about the conference, the human rights organization conference. So I sent out the flyer and the call for speakers. Sessions.

I have not been to this conference before, so I don't know what to advise folks. Although we do have money for cake and such, at this point this year we don't have money to send Commission members. I believe it's like $600.

I have put in a request in the budget cycle for the following year to dramatically increase our professional development money to be to do things like this in the future. So I don't know that there's any roles or responsibilities. I don't even know what we're doing as a, as a staff yet. I'm gonna work with the planning committee and see if we can get some kind of discounts or things for us if we volunteer to host sessions or guide people around or do whatever they need to do. So I'm not really sure what other guidance I have at the moment.

It looks like it's about— it's $800 per person plus another $100 if you go to the dinner. Um, that's a lot for an in-town. Unfortunately, I think that's a little outside of my budget even. But I do think this is a good thing. I'm glad we know about it for next year.

We'll definitely budget that accordingly. So if you're here, um, if you've been involved in other conventions that have come up And sometimes I do ask for volunteers, especially at the local level. If that's something that comes up, just let us know. I will definitely do that. Um, the executive director at ASHER is on the planning committee for this, so I've been in contact with him about getting us linked up to whatever we can link up to.

Yeah, so I will definitely let you know. So, um, we did make a motion earlier to move B, C, and D to a special section.

Seem to have a struggle getting things coordinated for that. Let's take like 2 minutes and talk about that. What's everyone's availability? When can we do that? I'm open.

I'll make myself open. All right. Davey and I are open. We can do it whenever. So, do we want to shoot for— Let's say Wednesday in 2 weeks.

Yep. Does that work for everyone? Yep. What day, the 3rd? September 3rd.

I'm assuming— do you mean at the same time? Same bat time. Okay. I'm not available on Wednesdays during that time. What about Thursday?

The 4th? Yep, that works great. Could we do the 4th? Same bad time, same place? Our folks online?

It's not optimal, but I have it available. Is that September 4th, you said? Yes, sir. September 4th. All right.

Uh, how long? What time allotment are we portioning for that? 1 Hour, standard meeting time. Okay, um, I might be able to make work. Okay, um, I'm going back to school.

So that's kind of like a new thing in my life. So congratulations. Well, yeah, that's a lot of work. That's awesome. Anyway.

All right, perfect. I thought about remedial algebra myself. We'll still work through Maya to send out invites. So perfect. We'll have that for our special session.

We'll review those 3 audit items. Awesome. Are there any other items that we need to talk about for the next agenda that you guys want to go over? I think I'm going to make an attempt to reach out to you all individually and have just like a 15-minute chat and get some more feedback on this forum and what we want for the next one. I think these end up being very rushed, so don't feel like you have to come up with it right now or forever hold your peace.

I will reach out to you guys over this next week. So, if there's nothing else, we'll move on to public comments and participation. Hi public, how's it going? Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

Awesome. Where are you guys from? Um, originally New York City, but I've lived here for a little while. Right on. From Anchorage.

Yeah, spent most of my life here. Moved a couple of times, came back, and love it here. It's the best. It is. Well, we're glad to see you guys here.

We hope you guys come more often. We really do encourage participation. You got friends, bring them. If we fill this room up, we're going to get a bigger room. But really, this is for you guys.

So be here. If you guys have questions or comments or anything, hit me up or any of the commission members after this meeting as well. And if you want to consider joining the commission, you can apply online. We should have that in the—. We're considering it.

I just want to get a little bit Okay, thank you. You know, I'm going to take that as an invitation to let folks know that I'm going to be actually leaving the country for a bit during October and starting in late September, and that will overlap my conclusion of my current position role ending, I think, October 14th, and I will not be renewing. So that slot is certainly open for someone to Thank you, Ryan, for stepping in. What was that, Ryan? You are renewing?

No. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you. We'll miss you, Ryan. Sorry, you're going to have many, many disappointments in life to you, Elon.

I appreciate you, sir. All right, so our next meeting is September 18th, 2025 at 6:00 PM. In this building. I hope you all will be able to make it like today. That was awesome.

Thank you so much for making it online as well. I know it's difficult to race down. So if there is nothing else from everyone, I am open to a motion to adjourn.

Make a motion to adjourn. Second. All right. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. All opposed? And the ayes have it. You all get to go home again. Congratulations.

Thank you, everyone online. Thank you, guys. Okay.