Anchorage Assembly: Anchorage Women's Commission Meeting 10-1-26

Okay, looks like you're good.

Okay, we are recording. Yep, perfect. Hi everybody, welcome. Calling this meeting of the Municipal Women's Commission to order today, October 1st. It is 4:34 PM.

Um, with that, we can do the Pledge of Allegiance. I will say it.

I guess if you're in the room, stand.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Woo-hoo! With that, we'll do roll call. We can just say our names. I'm Ariana. I am vice chair and acting chair.

If we want to do online and then we can do in person, just jump in here.

Melissa Scarbeck, I'm here. Thank you.

Leslie Vines here. Hi, Leslie. Thank you.

Beth, are you around?

Sort of, I'm trying, sorry. No, you're good. I just have to make sure you're present enough for roll call. Great. And then I am present enough for roll call.

I'm sorry. Here. Perfect. And then in the room, Celeste here. Celeste Early here.

Thank you. That's all of our commissioners. And then we have two lovely staff people.

Ashley's here. Ashley's here. Thank you. Okay. And that's roll call.

We'll start with approval of the agenda. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

I'll motion to approve it. Thank you. And for clarity, anybody in the body can make a motion to approve agendas. Second, um, approved minutes, any of that kind of stuff. Uh, now that we— oh yeah, can I get a second?

I'll second. Thanks, Melissa. Um, now that we are entertaining our agenda, does anybody have any amendments to the agenda?

Seeing and hearing none, I will take a consent approval, a consent approval. So if anybody does not want to do that, you can raise your hand now. Otherwise—.

Okay. The motion— or the motion to approve the agenda as written is approved. Do any members have disclosures that they wish to disclose today? As a reminder, disclosures are if we're going to talk about something and you feel like you might have a conflict of interest, before we talk about that, we ask for— we give a chance for disclosure so you can reveal your conflict of interest, and then the chair would make a determination if for some reason you needed to sit out. We are not taking any decision-making orders today, so there shouldn't be anything that I would have to decide us sitting out, but we do take this as part of practice.

Okey dokey. Seeing and hearing no disclosures, we'll move on to the approval of the motion of the minutes. I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

I'll motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. Do I have a second?

I'll second that. Thank you. Thank you. That's a motion to approve from Celeste and a second from Melissa. Does anybody from the minutes that were given as part of the email that you would have gotten, did anybody see any edits that needed to be made?

Amazing. Well, with that, we can just do by consent. Does anybody have an objection to the minutes?

Amazing. Seeing and hearing none, the minutes are approved by consent. And we will move to committee reports, starting with the Infrastructure Committee. My update as the part of the Infrastructure Committee is that we do have two members who are up for renewal. Staff have put put those members forward for renewal, and that is part of just kind of the due diligence process.

It will happen. I have not seen them on the agenda yet, but I imagine the agenda update for the assembly comes out on Friday, so I imagine I'll see it on Friday. Um, they do it on like Tuesday and Friday, so it could be this week, it could be— or this meeting, it could be the next meeting. We lost somebody. Oh, no.

We lost 4 of them. Okay. I'm missing—. Yeah. 4:39 We lost Beth.

So if everybody is okay with it, we'll just move into a committee of the whole because we're just doing reports anyways. And if Beth comes back, we can pick the meeting back up.

Emailed saying she is not going to make the meeting. She's stuck with a specialized works project.

Ah. Sorry, I'm just responding to her. Sorry. Great. Finishing infrastructure report.

I'm sure I'll have an update that our remaining commissioners were approved at the next meeting. We do have currently 2 open seats— whoops, where is my— apologies, I am pulling up my contact list. Seat 1 and Seat 5. So I will also report back, see if anybody new comes up on the list, but when I looked at the last roster of people, there was nobody listed for the Women's Commission. Staff, is there anything that you might know that I don't know when it comes to members, new members, potential members?

No, we've heard nothing. Great. That's okay. That is all for infrastructure. Leslie, did you have something you wanted to add for infrastructure?

Yeah. I don't know what it's called.

Sorry, Leslie, I am having a lot of breakup with your audio. Would you mind repeating that?

Oh, um, I did see— I'm not sure if this is what she's talking about, but Leslie, I— we did see your, um, document go out with all of the image. And so I was just going to take that to outreach and communications, which is our next item anyways, if that's what you were talking about.

I think my term is ending.

Oh, your term. Yes. You are—. Let's see. You are one of the two people Um, who put, uh, who are up for renewal, the staff did just automatically submit your renewal.

So unless you say you don't want to be part of it, they will automatically renew you.

We have to have their resume if they don't want to renew on OnBoard. They can renew on OnBoard. Let us know that they've done that. Um, and then we need to collect the letter of recommendation from the director of the health department. But if they go through OnBoard, we need to be notified so we can collect that.

And then if they don't want to go through the OnBoard process, they'll have to send us their resume and an email saying that they would like to be reappointed, and then we'll take care of the rest from there. Okay, so you— sorry, to understand, you sent the commissioners who need to be renewed an email with those directions? Correct, yeah. They have an email that states that they do onboard the process, and if they don't want to have to deal with onboard or log in and do it that way, which way to do it through us. Okay, but either way, so they need to be notified if they plan to or not to.

Great. So to give that to you, Leslie, you do need to send in a resume if you do want to renew or go through Onboard. This— there should be an email in your inbox from staff with specific directions. And then the other seat for those interested is Kayla. And so I will make a point to follow up with both groups or with both commissioners and make sure that you guys have that information.

Thank you. Does anybody else have anything they want to add or questions for infrastructure?

Okay. Next we have outreach and communication, which is—. Oops, sorry. So many documents. One of them is the right one.

Um, I know it's Leslie and someone else, and I don't have it. I apologize. Leslie and Kayla. Kayla's not here. Uh, Leslie, is your audio any better?

Oh, a little bit. Are you guys hearing her better than me? I can't hear her at all in here. We have met virtually. Someone mentioned in our last meeting that you guys wanted to see it first, so we met virtually.

Um, I heard that you guys met virtually and that you sent the document to us because we asked to see it. Um, let's see, can I share screen? Am I allowed to do that? Oh nope. Uh, staff, are you able to share screen and share that?

Image with everybody so we can just see it?

Yes, we can. We'll have to get into the G Drive real fast. Give me a second. Yeah, no worries. It doesn't need any formal approval, but we did just say, like, if anybody wanted to see it, we would put it out there.

So the committee doesn't need to make a recommendation, or the committee of the whole doesn't need to make a decision. But we will get that out as soon as we can. I'll throw it into the chat because it's going through. We're opening an email right now. It's going to take a second to load all the data.

Totally. Let's see, is it going to—. Will it let me? Oh, can you guys see it? Does that work for you?

Did I do it? Yes. Amazing. Huzzah. So this is our lovely committee put together document.

The site we want to send them to, Leslie, is the OnBoard. I can— I don't know if it's faster. I can put that link in the chat or Staff can, but that is the like QR code that they would want to get linked to and the information. We probably wouldn't want a phone number, but we could.

Yeah, they probably would just want to go straight to the onboard because that has all the relevant information there. So I would say like maybe take out the for more information section and then just add the link and the web— for the onboard information, but I don't have any other critiques. Does anybody else have any thoughts?

We love it, we hate it?

No, I think it's super cute. It looks good. Great.

Um, and you can definitely, um, send it to me when it's done, Leslie, and I, I can send it through my work, and then there are, um, I'm happy to loop you guys into some emails with some other resources of people who can put it out there from the municipality side. And then I think maybe send it to the— send it back to staff when it's fixed, and then they can send it to all members, and then you guys can put it out wherever you guys have people to put it out to. Oh, thank you, Arlie. Arlie put it in the chat.

Okay.

That is the link, the boards and commissions.

From our lovely committee, is there anything else you guys would like to add?

I'm so sorry, Leslie, I'm having the hardest time hearing you.

I see you, which is great, but your audio is really cutting out and I don't know why. I know you're driving, um, and I want you to be safe. If you get into better audio, we can come back to what you were saying. How about that? I don't want to distract from your driving.

Okay. Great. Coming back to— we'll come back to that strategic planning committee.

Celeste and Beth, who is not here. So Celeste. Yeah. So I unfortunately don't have much of an update. We were going— Beth, Kristy, and I were going to meet, and then we literally had it planned last time we all were here at a meeting, and then for whatever reason, it just didn't work out due to scheduling.

And so we do have another meeting scheduled on the books for the strategic planning, but I have no other update other than that. Great. Thank you. And then one quick thing is that Melissa is our newest member. Which committee do you want to join?

Which one? Hi, now, which one needs the, the most assistance?

I don't have an answer for that.

Um, chair choice. I, I'm, I'm fine to, to work on any of them. I'm, I'm cool.

Whatever you want. It's commissioner choice. I can't pick for you. Sorry.

Okay. What are my options? Yeah. So you have the infrastructure committee. And they— that committee's job is Leslie and I, and we develop— we're working on an onboarding process and an information practice.

And we kind of make sure that like the governance stuff is still going. Um, there's an outreach, communications, and collaboration that is to renew our social media presence and promote community understanding of the issues impacting women. And then there's a strategic plan and annual report. They're working on the survey, community scan, um, and educating, um, they're trying to like get our like What is our long-term goal for the Commission? And so that is Kristy, Beth, and Celeste.

Kayla and Leslie are on the outreach, communication, and collaboration. Leslie is on both infrastructure and outreach, communication, collaboration, which is fine, but, you know, being on one of those might help boost. Yeah. So I'll pick the outreach and communications. So I don't know if Leslie would want to stay on there, but You know, it looks like those, like, outreach and communication and infrastructure are the two that only have two.

So great. I will—. I'm sure they would appreciate the support. Thank you.

Okay. I'm going to move on from committee reports unless anybody has anything to add.

Amazing. Staff, is there anything that you would like to, um, report on? Anything from the health department that you want to add to?

I'm not at this moment. I don't have anything new from last month right now.

Public Health Information Officer is now being, uh, acting with Val Clark. So for those items that are going to be posted, such as the recruitment flyer, um, we'll go through her instead of Michelle now. Okay. Is it still okay that we send stuff to you guys and then you forward it to the appropriate people, or would you like us to handle? Cool.

I think that'll be for you, but just if you're trying to get in contact with the person because there's a typo or something along the lines that you notice, it would be Val Clark and not Michelle Fairmark now. Okay, you're great. Thank you so much.

Okay, no, nothing for the staff report.

We have no old business to attend to. I have a couple of things that we could do for new business if it's okay with everybody. Not anything to like decide, but some 2 things I wanted to share. My work is hosting a Robert's Rules training. If you're interested, it's free.

It's open to the public. I have dropped the information in the chat, and that is just how to do Robert's Rules, the basics of these meetings, assembly meetings, most, most meetings that are run in some sort of formal manner. And then I did want to— I did look through the assembly items. Just wanted to point out two things that might be something the Women's Commission is interested in. The first one is AO 2026-130.

I'm just dropping the item also in the chat. That is the election of school board members by district. It's a proposal by Assemblymember Handelson out of Eagle River, and they are— so So right now, school board members are across all of Anchorage. This proposal would, if approved by assembly, would go to the voters because it would change charter, and that is like our, our city constitution. And so that the proposal would make it so that there are one school board member per assembly district and then one at-large member, because I believe that there's 7 people on the board.

I'm not sure 100%, but I just— women, children, in that vein, it felt like something that might be of interest to this body if we wanted to, like, make a comment. We could pass a resolution. And then the other thing that I wanted to point out was AO 2026-131. That is an adjustment to Assembly Code Title 28, which is about elections. And I believe that's a proposal from Assembly Vice Chair Voland, um, and I think somebody else, but I can't remember.

And, um, the proposal would make it so that if you were running for office, you would have to submit some sort of petition along. So right now, all you have to do is fill fill it, a form. But this would be a small petition, the idea being that a lot of people sign up to run for office and then don't actually do any of the, like, work to run for office. And so it's kind of in name only, and that can dilute people's understanding and dilute the tickets and make it hard for people who are trying to vote to understand who's actually running and who's just, like, a name on the ballot. So this would put, I think, like a small amount of signatures that they would have to collect to put forward some kind of like intention or like forethought going in, rather than it just being like a form you fill out.

I'm not doing the item justice, but I just wanted to bring that forward. I think that like barriers to entry when it comes to running for office, particularly for women running for office— I mean, it takes— women have to be asked like 7 times to be able to even consider running for office. They're less likely to apply for jobs if they don't feel like they meet all the qualifications. I think that this is— that's something that this Commission, you know, could look at and make a comment on, or just like you as people may want to be aware of. So I wanted to kind of bring that into our forethought.

And then the final thing I wanted to bring up is I've sent this to chair, but I kind of wanted to put it into the consciousness of all of us, is if there's anybody that we might want to hear from, I'm happy to work and like schedule presentations or like chats like we had with the mayor's office. That was great for those of us who got to attend, but the assembly chair right now is Assemblymember Brawley.

A woman. There's a lot of women on the body right now, so like speaking with some of them could be really interesting. Um, there's YWCA Alaska, there's the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, uh, uh, executive director is a woman. Like there's a, there's a lot of women out there and we could start talking to them and chatting with them and bringing them into our meetings to hear about their perspectives. Um, I know that the strategic committee is working a lot on like the long-term goals, but I I feel like we could be doing more in like the day-to-day of these meetings while we work on that goal.

So I just wanted to put it out there and see if anybody was interested in that kind of stuff, starting to schedule people on our agendas to like talk to us. Yeah, I like that idea, Ari. I think that it would be really good to hear from Anna and others. So yeah, if you've got those connections and want to make it happen, I fully support that.

Thank you for linking the assembly agenda in the chat. Can I just ask, what was the resolution number on that? I didn't—. Oh yeah, my bad. I thought the link was going to link.

Okay. I'm like trying to scan. The first one was the one on the school board is AO26-130, and the one on the other Title 21 change is 26-131.

Um, so one, both of them are in the section for introduction, so they have not yet hit public hearing. So the first part when it comes to the assembly is that they're introduced, and then they go up for public hearing, and sometimes they set the public hearing out a little bit. Um, I should also mention it's the beginning of municipal budget season, so the mayor has introduced her budget, or her 100, uh, 180-day memo Um, there's a lot of like meetings and stuff that are happening at the local government level when it comes to the budget. And, you know, things that— things need to get funded in order for them to happen. So I just like to remind people, like, if there's something that you want to have happen in the city, um, check out the, the work sessions and stuff, because that's where— I don't know, the money— the money is where the stuff happens.

Let's see, the assembly has a page about it, so I can find that with all like the work sessions and stuff.

That's it. I'll drop that in the chat too. Boop.

I did ask the mayor's office after the last meeting because one of the concerns that I have is how many, uh, how many staff people are supporting commissions, because our understanding is that people who are supporting commissions are not paid. And I'm concerned that that job is being mainly held by women, and so women are taking an unfair burden and they're not getting any sort of stipend for taking on additional duties. And so I think it's 100% within this body's recommendation to I tried to ask for more information about how many staff people were, like, how many staff, what the demographics of those staff were, and I was told that they don't have that.

Um, so I don't know, I kind of, I kind of stopped, but I was like in the middle of wanting to write a resolution about that stuff, and then I kind of came, came to a screeching halt. I don't know, is that like silly? Would anybody else back a resolution about trying to get more information and support that, like, we can only do this work if we have good staff, and we can only have good staff doing it if they're getting paid. And I'm concerned that women are taking on that burden more often.

Uh, yeah, I mean, I would support that. I think that at the very least, like, having that data available is really important because then you can't make any sort of decision-making on that if you don't know what the demographics are. But yeah, I mean, regardless, I'd still support staff being paid for their work and time doing commission work that's outside of their normal job duties. Yeah, yeah. In my understanding, it doesn't, it doesn't create a welcoming environment for commission members and volunteers because there tends to be high staff turnover, um, because it— the job gets shuffled around from person to person Or, you know, it's within the mayor's office and then it changes regularly as the mayor changes.

And so what can happen is that you don't— you have a bunch of volunteers who aren't properly supported to do the work and then you're asking them to advise on various things. And, you know, I know from personal experience that that doesn't go very well. So I'd like to— I'd like to see staff paid for it and I'd like to make sure that women aren't bearing this like volunteer gig as part of their job unfairly.

Early. And maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know, because they don't know.

I feel like those are pretty tangible things. I don't know, it seems like, um, it would be nice for the women's division to have like a win or something that we were able to that we advocated for. I know that the survey is kind of churning right now, but yeah. So I guess what kind of support would you need, Arianna, to do that? Is it just like—.

I wonder if the first step is writing a resolution, like formally requesting the mayor's office to collect that information. And give it back to us, because right now it's just like a me ask instead of like a commission ask. Um, and it feels like there aren't so many commissions that they couldn't maybe come up with that pretty quickly. Like, somebody has to have that information, or it's like on a website or something. Those who the people are.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Um, so like knowing that other people are maybe also interested in passing some resolution work, maybe I can just I can— I'll write up a resolution and I'll put it up on our next agenda and be like, you know, this is something we're interested in pursuing. And then if it gets support, it can go to the mayor's office, and then maybe we can get more details, and then maybe that leads to something else. And I don't know if that happens in this budget process or if it's something we prepare for the next budget process, but, um, you know, I think that's— that's something I personally care about is women when it comes to local government and civic engagement.

And so, um, you know, that's something that I— and, and as we learned in this commission, there was a lot of holes that we were trying to fill, and we're not the only ones. We're not the only commission suffering from that. So I, I'm trying to figure out, like, how can we better support— how can the city better support its commissions if it wants volunteers to do this work and make it meaningful?

Yay! Okay, I will write a resolution and then I will put it forward. Um, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't like on a limb at this request, I guess. So that's helpful. Yeah.

Um, does anybody else have anything they want to talk about or, you know, mull over? Like, it doesn't Um, I did want to just— I didn't want to like, uh, I should have said it earlier. I love the flyer. I love the flyer, um, to get to generate new tuition support. And I, I know it's being recorded.

Um, full disclosure, I do use different generative AI software in my own like work life, and so I, I do use that technology. And I also understand that there's a lot of like scrutiny around that technology. And I don't know exactly who generated that flyer. I, I think content-wise I like it. I— the only thing that I would maybe comment on is like the image.

If we're able to use real people, everything else can stay the same, but as long as we use real people, I think that that could be like— even if it's a photo of the Women's Commission, like we all got together too. I don't know, I don't want to like call process, but I also I would feel fine with an AI-generated flyer as long as it didn't have AI-generated people, if that makes sense. And I just wanted to flag that really quickly. Yeah, I, I personally agree with that. I think, are you comfortable just responding and being like, hey, we talked about this after Leslie popped off, but—.

Yeah, was it Leslie who generated it? I didn't want to—. Okay. Leslie and Kayla are on the outreach committee, or Melissa, you're now on the outreach committee. I was gonna say, hey ladies, I'm here and I'm on the, I'm on it.

Um, do you have their contact information? Say again? Do you have their contact information? Because the 3 of you can talk. It's any more than 3 and then we hit a Meetings Act issue.

Um, I don't have their contact information. Um, okay. If—. How, how would I get that? I can send it to you.

Yeah, that'd be fantastic. And then I'll just send out, uh, an email. Yeah, as long as we just like—. Would you guys be— wait, say again? Oh, sorry, go ahead, Melissa.

Um, I mean, would— I mean, would you be okay if we scheduled a, you know, you know, a collaborative time for everybody to get together on the committee and put our, like, do pictures?

Oh, of us? I mean, like, where am I gonna find these weird people? Can we do something with—. Yeah, I, that— I mean, I loved how diverse that photo was. Obviously we want to represent all of Anchorage, um, and I don't know, I don't know if we want to like at the next say, and maybe at the next meeting say, hey, it's really important for us to all be in person if possible.

We'd love to take like a group photo so that we can use that on a future flyer to get more women involved. I don't know how— and, and then it's like, it's us, it's— we're representing the community, and I don't know how comfortable people feel with their photo being out, but, um, as a commissioner. But that's why I don't think it's a good question. Otherwise, I, I have access to some stock photos, Melissa. I'd be happy to send those to you too, like just saying here's some like general, free people that like to be fine.

No, I'll, I'll send out an email and, and I'll, you know, I'll confer with the, you know, the, the people on my committee and then see what they want to do. But yeah, I mean, like, a month notice, I feel like it's plenty, and we can go from there and see what we can get done. But I I mean, if we're going to do real people, I think, you know, representing the committee itself and whoever is willing to do that, I think would be beneficial.

Great. I don't really want my photo taken. I will if we have to. To, but are you okay taking photos? Yeah, I can take a photo.

Okay. Instagram boyfriend. I just—. I don't know anybody who does that. I was actually just thinking, I was like, oh, I wonder if I know anybody who like takes professional photos.

Um, but yeah, no, I think— I mean, if nothing else, we can get my teenager to to come in, take pictures. She's got to do some community service at some point. Not like in actuality, like it's good for her to donate her time.

We can sign off as commissioners that she's volunteering if she has like a checkbox there. I don't know if she does, but I think it would be good to— I mean, what else is she doing? So, right, yeah.

Great. Okay. So on our next agenda, so what does that look like logistically for you guys?

Do you want people in person? You want to just talk about it and get back to us? Is that—. Yeah, yeah. Let me talk with them because people might not want to take photos and that's okay, but they want to be included in them and they might have a great picture that they already like and we can just crop it in there.

I'm not— This is actually probably not a good committee for me to be on. I'm not tech savvy in the least, but we'll figure it out. Okay, great. And our lovely Arlie and Ashley sent you the contacts so you can reach out to them and take that feedback, and we greatly appreciate it. And yeah, if you need us to show up or, you know, like, we can include it in the agenda, we can ask people to come in person.

With a little heads up, that kind of stuff. So you guys just tell us what you need and we will share it. I'm also down for generic woman is fine too, like stock, stock photo. Yeah, woman is great too. Generic group of women.

I— Canva has a lot of them that aren't AI generated, but yeah. Oh, I thought she was just asking that. Yeah, amazing.

I love it. Thank you. No, there's no comment that's too late. All comments are good comments.

Does anybody have anything else they want to add? Anything woman-related that they want to mention?

Shrug.

I have nothing.

That's fine. Okay, well, we can be done. I don't mind ending early, it's just us. Um, I— did I miss anything? Did I miss anything, Ashley, early?

I don't think so, we just gotta close her out. Amazing. Okay, this is a committee of the whole, so we are, um— I guess I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. Yay! Hearing a motion to adjourn, we are adjourned at 5:13. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you guys. Thanks for bearing through with us. You did great. Thanks. Okay.

All right. Bye.