Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re AO 2026-62 and AO 2026-62(S), amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 4.50...

July 14th. We're noticed from noon to 1:30 if we need that full time. This is a work session on AO-2026-62. I'll just note there are 3 versions of it. So we have the original version, the S version, and then the S-1 version, which was published on our— introduced at our last meeting on July 7th.

And then I'll also note, actually, we'll do introductions and I'll make just a couple of quick intro remarks. So starting with Mr. Perez-Rodilla. Cameron Perez-Rodilla. Donald Handlin. Erin Baldwin-Day.

Zach Johnson. Anna Brawley. Sydney Scout. And then on the phone we have Mr. Martinez.

Yes, thank you, Chair. Janice Park. Yeah, Janice Park. And then Miss Silvers.

Yes, Chair, thank you. Okay, great. So that's all of our members. We're also joined by Assembly Council, Clerk's Office, members of the public, and the administration in the back. So I'll just briefly note, and I'll note also, we have, as I said, those 3 versions.

We have some slides up on the screen and posted online. Online and in your emails. And I'll just say, as one of the sponsors of this ordinance, and then I'll turn it over to my co-sponsor, our intent today is to cover, really, to, to have kind of a reset conversation about what we're trying to do here, go into not a lot of detail but a summary of the new S-1 version. The sponsor's intent at this point is to move forward with the S-1 version, so we can certainly talk about the others, but that's the goal, just to say. We just wanted to make sure all three of them were here.

And then certainly want to make time for folks to describe their amendments that they brought forward if they would like to. For those sponsors, we have one additional amendment to describe. And then again, I'll remind folks that this is an item where the public hearing has been continued. And so our practice and the charter is that we do not debate on items that are still out for public hearing. And also work sessions are not for debate.

So of course we want to encourage folks to ask questions, to certainly speak to the intent of your amendments. But if we start getting into debate, then I'll need to gently remind us to stay back on track. So, so yeah, with that, I will turn it to Mr. Garcia for the presentation. Okay, thank you, Chair. Let's see, so I'll start just by saying that before we discuss the amendments, I think our intention is to step back and explain how we got here.

This ordinance has evolved significantly over the past several months. We have listened to public safety agencies, we've listened to community organizations, advocates, neighborhood leaders, residents, and through some of the dialogue in our meetings through Assembly members as well. And today's goal is to explain that evolution, the major changes, and then the design of this and provide context before we discuss the amendments. Can you move to the next slide, please? Okay, so today we'd like to accomplish a few things.

We'd like to recap the process that brought us here. Refocus on what this commission is intended to accomplish, overview how the ordinance evolved from the original version to now the S1 version, and then of course introduce the sponsor amendments and then discuss those. So that's sort of our plan for today. Next slide. This work began with the former Public Safety Advisory Commission and continued through the Public Safety Advisory Commission Task Force.

Uh, the task force spent, as you know, several months discussing these issues and developing recommendations. The vast majority of those recommendations that came out of the task force were actually— are actually reflected in this ordinance. And since then, we've discussed, we've met with, again, public safety agencies, we've repeatedly met with community organizations and advocates, we've met with our own public safety agencies, and, and can, can continue to get feedback. And this is why— one of the reasons why this is— could continue to, to, to be refined. Every version reflects what we've learned through the process, and this has truly been an iterative effort to build on listening and refinement.

Next slide.

These guiding principles have been through with us the entire time. And so I wanted to just hit on these. The public safety is broader than policing and includes fire, behavioral health, prosecution, prevention, emergency response, and many community partners. Meaningful community involvement makes public safety better and stronger. The commission is intended to serve as a bridge between the community, our public safety agencies, and policymakers.

And we want to build something that works over the long term, not simply something that reacts to the issues of today. And then every design decision comes back to these four principles. Next slide.

This slide captures sort of the vision that what we're looking for. We want this commission to be independent. We want it to be community-led. We want it to be advisory, and we want it to be systems-focused. The purpose of this is to strengthen public safety, transparency, and trust in Anchorage, to create an ongoing forum for community engagement, to review policies, training, data, and trends, to make thoughtful recommendations, and to create a consistent place where community concerns can be heard before they become a crisis.

This is a systems commission, not an incident commission. Next slide. What we've heard on, on June 19th, which we were all there, the testimony there reminded us that public safety is a deeply personal issue. We primarily heard two perspectives. First, we heard families seeking justice after experiencing profound loss, and those voices matter.

Their experiences deserve to be heard. Second, we heard calls for subpoena power, calls for investigative authority, and requests for a traditional civilian oversight body. My, my co-sponsor and I spent considerable time researching many national models and consulting with NACOL, which is a national organization that supports civil civilian oversight. We went through these versions with them and talked with them, and what we learned was that investigative commissions are fundamentally different than what we're talking about here. That they require investigators, attorneys, independent budgets, staffing, legal authority, and very different governance structure.

Even community oversight bodies generally do not conduct investigations themselves. They, they contract it out or they hire staff to be able to do that. They oversee them by investigations by professionals. If Anchorage wants to create that kind of body, a legitimate public policy discussion may need to happen. That, that may be so something that we want to do.

It deserves its own ordinance, its own legal framework, its own funding, and its own public discussion. That's not what this ordinance is intended to do. This ordinance is intended to take a different approach. It focuses on community partnership, systems improvement, policy review, community engagement, transparency, building trust, and continuous improvement of our public safety to departments. We are not saying investigative oversight is not important.

We're saying it's a different conversation than the one we're having to, to today. Next slide, please. Uh, so this was our original version. It was, uh, about being community-driven, public safety agencies serving as advisors and information resources, systems-level focus, and partnership instead of oversight. Even from the beginning, our goal was to improve the public safety system by bringing community voices and public safety expertise together at the table.

That philosophy has remained remarkably consistent through this process. Next slide. And you can skip to this slide. Go to the next slide, please. Thanks.

Okay, so the S version. The S version reflected our first significant response to feedback. Our goal was to actually build broader support, strengthen engagement and partnership with the administration, and increase Public Safety Department participation. This was our effort to try to actually bring greater engagement from the departments themselves. And so the changes were creating the ex officio officers as voting members and a shared leadership model.

But after additional conversations, we consistently heard both at the meeting we were all at and through lots of conversations that that version weakened the community leadership for this. The commission no longer appeared to be sufficiently independent, and the commission's roles and responsibilities in addition, still needed to be clarified, and we needed more specifics about what they would do, what this commission would actually function like. So those comments directly shaped the S-1 version that we have here today. Next slide. The S-1 version reflects everything we've learned through this process.

It restored community leadership, it restored an independent structure, it moved the ex officio members to non-voting, We also significantly strengthened the ordinance by clearly defining the commission's role, expanding the expected activities, strengthened community engagement, adding ongoing training and education, clarification of expectations around learning how public safety systems work. We added a formal relationship with the audit committee, the Assembly Audit Committee, and through an amendment you'll see coming soon, we want to bring a more formal relationship with the Ombudsman's Office as well. And we better define the commission systems-level responsibility. Membership was intentionally balanced so that this is community-led. Public safety expertise should inform this very much so, but neither perspective should dominate.

The S1 version returns the original version while making the commission substantially stronger and clearer. Next slide. So what this ordinance does and does not do. This is really the policy choice before the assembly. The ordinance creates a community-led advisory commission, a systems commission, an ongoing partnership between the community and public safety, a place for learning, transparency, engagement, and thoughtful recommendations.

It does not create an investigative body, a personnel review body, subpoena authority, or another internal affairs process. If the assembly wants to create investigative commission, that's an important conversation for us to have. It's just not the conversation that we're having. Today. As members, we want you to consider your amendments, and I'd encourage everybody to come back to this question: does my amendment strengthen the commission, or does it fundamentally change its purpose to something different?

So that's one of the things I'd like you to think about as we move through our amendments. Uh, last slide. So in closing, the commission creates a permanent place for community voice, public safety partnership, learning and continuous improvement. And I think as we think about what success looks like for this commission, success looks like stronger trust between the community and the administration and all of the agencies within that, better communication, better public safety outcomes, and a safer Anchorage. And then I'd like to just say a couple things before I hand it back over to my co-sponsor, and that is that when we bring issues like this forward, often and this has happened a lot in my time on the assembly, it creates a window for people to talk about things that are really important for them, that may or may not have to do with this exact ordinance, but that's okay because that's part of the process, right?

But what happens sometimes is it creates, I think, things that I think are damaging. And one of the things that has come is this us versus them conversation, which I think is really unfortunate. This us versus them of police or public safety versus the community, when it's really a both/and, where we can respect the officers and then the people who put their lives on the line for us every single day. And we can also respect the concerns and the ideas from our community. Both could happen.

And I also would just say that at the end of the day, this proposal is pro-police, pro-public safety, and pro-community. That's the idea. And that's difficult to imagine in this world because we find ourselves split often. So just a few comments, but I'm going to hand it over to my co-sponsor to see if she has anything to add. Yeah, thank you.

No, I think Cameron did a good job highlighting. I guess I'll just note too, I think the way that we've looked at this, and I know when former member Rivera was working on it as well, our kind of premise all along has been that right now the community or the Muni doesn't have the this kind of commission. Certainly we have many others, we have other avenues like the Public Safety Committee, but we think that the Muni would be better with something like this existing versus not. So I think that's, I mean, that's certainly a policy question that's really before the body. And then if it does, if it is better that it exists, then the question is, you know, what does it look like?

So this is our attempt to answer that question. So I think, That's all I would like to say at this point. And so I'll just note, first, we were joined by Ms. Silvers in person at 12:08. And then also we now have a packet of amendments printed for us. And so I'll just note, and I'll offer for the amendment sponsors to go through these in a few minutes, but I'll just note most of them do say yes.

Of course, they were written for the version that was on the prior meeting. And so amendment sponsors, you can also speak to kind of if you still intend to move this forward. And of course, these would probably need to be updated just with section line references. But that's technical details we can deal with. So if you want to speak to the concept of those, so I'll say that.

And then I guess before we go to the amendments, I'll just ask if there's any questions or specifically on the S1 version from folks.

Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you. My first question is when or how you would recommend that we ask questions of departments. And potentially also unions on this question?

Yeah, I think that's a good question. So we did not— I know we have some of those folks in the back there. We did not specifically invite the departments or other entities to participate in this. So I guess one question— one answer would be we could invite them up today, but I don't know if they're prepared to do that. The other one would be to have conversations offline.

But this was kind of contemplated to be presentations by the various sponsors. Okay. I think— I think, yeah, I will. In that case, I will direct my questions offline.

I think the second question I have is far more broad and doesn't necessarily pertain to a specific amendment. So I will hold that question until after we've worked through amendments. Thank you. Next, Ms. Silvers, go ahead.

Yes, so I have questions regarding the cost of the assistance and the training, also the number of hours that are expected from the departments, and then the impact of those hours and that cost on the broader public safety picture and activities.

Yeah, I think I can, I can take a stab at that one. So I think, well, currently I don't think we have reattached it to this, but the original version contemplated no economic effects. So certainly there is a time cost and resources for, for any of these commissions. You know, they don't usually have a separate budget line, but they are they take the time of whatever department or departments are staffing them. And so the kind of trainings that are anticipated are things like ride-alongs.

These are things that the APD staff engage with, with members of the public and members, Assembly members, you know, whoever really requests it. I think that is a, I guess at this point we don't have a budget amendment proposed because we all know there's limited resources, but I think these are, these are things that we would imagine, for example, the Department of Well, our Department of Law can give trainings, our ethics board can give trainings. That's typically things they do. And I don't know if you have additional—. Yeah, I would just say that at this point, I mean, I think it would be— this is— do we need to introduce ourselves each time?

No. No. Okay. That it was my understanding that the trainings that they would receive are already existing, so there wouldn't— new trainings would not need to be created, and they would come from the sort of in the normal course of what these departments already do. So, but I would be open to getting some information from the departments to see if there is an economic impact from their perspective.

We are asking that it rotate through the departments in terms of staffing, but we have— I think my assumption was that there was not going to be any economic impact based on training, but we can certainly ask.

So have we identified the path, training path?

Do we know what that is? I guess what I'm trying to understand here is, can we realistically say that there's no economic impacts, or is that just kind of a hopeful, well, we don't have many resources, and so we hope we can squeeze this in to all the departments, and we hope we can squeeze this into all the trainings that we already have available because we know we don't have a lot of resources. And so is that— is no economic effect, is that realistic, or is that a hopeful kind of let's not look at this too closely because we know we don't have the resources? I think it's a fair question. I think that the The economic impact for all commissions is something that we have not really talked through and what they require in order to ensure that they function effectively.

It's really important that this commission functions effectively. It's important that it has staffing and it's important that they receive training. So it's a fair question. We just don't have the answer in terms of what that number is or whether that is a number or not. So that's something we'll need to follow up on and get back to you with.

And I guess I'll add one thing briefly, and then I saw Mr. Gates get in the queue as well. I do know, just thinking back to prior agendas where we're approving either appropriations or contracts, I know for just as an example, APD has a number of trainings that they do, things like de-escalation. A lot of those are often grant funded. And so one thing I think that we contemplated in here, and I think wrote in specifically, is that potentially those commission members could also participate in trainings with, you know, alongside the staff. Obviously, there's probably some that are not going to be appropriate or that they may not be able to fully participate, but that's another kind of, you know, so it's not that those things don't have a cost, it's the question of the marginal cost of having some commission members participate in a training that's already happening that may be grant funded.

So, but certainly that's something we can, we can follow up on. Um, and Mr. Gaste, did you want to respond as well? Uh, yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to speak to when a summary of economic effects, economic impact, is required. Our municipal code only requires when it's going to be over $30,000 for the municipality.

Um, if there's private sector economic effects, it starts at zero value, but this isn't related to anything in the public sector. It's all government costs for us to have this commission supported. Um, and I think that in the past, creating a new commission, I've heard maybe 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago that staffing a new commission that's set up might be in the number of some thousands of dollars, but it's well below that $30,000 threshold. So when we say no economic impact, we really mean no significant economic effect, and that means below $30,000. So exactly how much that's going to be, because staff have to do the agenda and materials and scheduling I just think it's going to be some cost, but it's not reaching that threshold required by code to report it.

Mm-hmm.

I guess without an estimate on the cost, it would probably be helpful to maybe get from the departments an estimate on the number of hours that they would spend and kind of come at it from that direction. My other question that I have was, And so you were talking a little bit about the two different models, Cameron, and I know that Nicole spoke about that at one of the task force meetings. I attended all of those except for one.

And so my question is, does this model that you've come up with, are you borrowing any pieces or utilizing any of the pieces from that like stronger professional oversight model?

So, yes, so the— I guess I would answer that in two ways. One is that NACOL put out a list of priorities that some of the community agencies that we've been talking with brought forward, and many of those items on there are included in this. So I'll just say that I don't have the name of it in front of me. It's called— and then the other thing that I will say is that we met with NACOL as well, and they sent us a number of national models from other cities, that language from other cities, formats from other cities, how they're structured, and we reviewed all of those and incorporated some of that into this. We had a conversation specifically with them about the role of this commission.

And one of the comments from the head of NACOL said that one of the strongest things that a commission like this can do is monitor and audit, but not respond to individual incidents, but gather data about what's happening over the course of time within the public safety departments and gather that information and make recommendations from the community's perspective about what, what, what can improve. So that's a very strong sort of role for a commission like, like this. But to answer your question specifically, some of the guidance from NACOL is incorporated in this, both in language from other cities and from some of their best practices that they have put out. I guess that doesn't quite answer my question. So the two models, and you discussed this when we first got here, you know, is kind of the advisory model.

Oh, I see. And then there's like the professional Mott, where you have professionals doing an oversight role. Have you borrowed any of the pieces from the oversight pathway and put it into this? I'm not sure that it's possible to answer that question. It's— what I'm saying is, is that a citizen oversight, that is, functions differently than what this does.

And so this is primarily an advisory Commission and does not investigate in and of itself. So that's the purpose. It does gather information and make recommendations, which in some way I would say is a slightly oversight role, but it does not function the same way as a traditional citizen oversight commission that has a large budget and hires investigators and has the kinds of powers that we've heard from some of the folks who've come Thanks. Next, I have— well, no, we were joined by Assembly Council Hurt on the phone, and then I have Miss Scout, and then Mr. Handeland. Thank you.

Um, I have some specific questions on the amendments that I'll get to later, but my, my bigger picture question— and again, appreciate your help educating me on this as I get up to speed here— is particularly given the context of the last Commission going away, what are the differences between this Commission and the last Commission that make this more meaningful and effective?

Yeah, I can speak to that. I mean, certainly the, the older or the prior Commission was advisory. This is advice. So there's a lot of similarities. Yeah, we took out the word advisory, changed it to partnership.

I think, at least for me, the biggest one that I did speak to at least one of the former commissioners about before we started this project even, about kind of what, from their perspective, worked well or didn't work. And that person was not on the commission in the end. They said basically that the representation had essentially gotten out of whack, you know, the idea being that if it's supposed to be a broad kind of intersection or cross-section of the community, it ended up being a lot of folks who are former law enforcement or former military. And basically, I think there was desire by some to really make it into that kind of advising from that perspective, and that clashed really with a lot of the other members' kind of intent for the Commission. And I think the other piece of it was that the staff support really dropped off for a lot of reasons.

And so I think, so certainly this is not completely different than what existed before, but I think the limitation on making sure that it does not become a majority representation by law enforcement in any of these agencies and the requirement for having rotating staffing at least periodically to kind of shift around, and maybe that makes the commission change over time as well. So those are really the two pieces I think that are materially different. Yeah, I would just add a couple of things.

The intentional broadening of what we mean by public safety and assigning representation from the different departments is very, very different from what was before. And the sort of the intentional language around who we want and should serve on this, both from the perspective of the representation from the community, bringing in mental health, bringing in a variety of those kinds of voices. The other thing I think is important is some of the sort of clear roles that this plays, that the language in the previous one was very vague. And so this, having a direct relationship with the audit committee, having a direct relationship with the ombudsman, and, and also developing an annual plan and having an annual report due really sets it up, I think, to have some really meaningful work. And so it's— I think it's structured differently, and I think has the opportunity to actually engage in, in, in a different way than the last one.

Thank you. Um, and You talked about the different options for structuring public safety oversight versus advisory versus all these different kind of structures. How and when was the decision made to pursue this specific structure versus the others? So, so why, why just advisory versus a commission that can investigate? Like, was that a task force recommendation?

Did the assembly decide to go on this path? Like, I mean, ultimately it was the sponsors of the ordinance. I mean, it was, it was the, it was the originally it was 3 of us and now it's 2 of us. But after we gathered all of the information that we did through the task force, through the meetings, through the conversations, all of that, this is the direction we felt like was in the best interest of the city. So it was our choice to move in that direction.

And I'm curious, from the last commission, how many— do we have data on the— how much time was dedicated to the different departments being encompassed in public safety here? That seems like something that could and should impact representation on the body. Like, I think about firefighters versus police officers versus Office of Emergency Management. Like, these are very different jobs. We're using a broad term, public safety.

Firefighters don't arrest people. I would just encourage you to remember also that we have a, we have a mobile crisis team that is with the fire department. That is very much involved in public safety. And so the, I think what's important here is that the, I don't think that this commission should be working on things that aren't relevant to public safety. And what this ordinance does is it creates an opportunity for them to set an annual plan and focus in the things that are of the highest priority.

So that's the intent. Yeah, and I would just add too, so the, interestingly, the conversation about, you know, a lot of the discussion focuses on law enforcement, Certainly many people in the community that have participated, that is part of their motivation and their interest. And I think it's interesting if you go back to the original Public Safety Commission from the 1990s and we kind of dug back into those records, there was the same discussion back then. It was, do we focus on crime prevention or broad public safety? Ultimately they decided to go with public safety.

And I think another piece to consider is how many of these issues that we're dealing with now have intersectionality, right? So we've got outdoor fires, you know, the debate that most of us up here had last year about that, I think it was last year about that ordinance, you know, and the question about who arrests and how does that work? What is the interaction between those two departments? Disaster preparation, wildfire, you know, certainly those are multiple departments and can certainly have a, you know, keeping order aspect depending on how, you know, how much the ass hits the fan, so to speak. And things like drug interdiction, you know, so that's certainly a health issue, issue, it's a safety issue.

And so I think that's, um, and it is, it, anyway, it's, it's difficult because I think you can make a case for having a, a pure focus on one area. You can also make a case for how these complex issues interplay with each other. So, so ultimately we landed with the broad version.

Thank you. Um, I guess just one other question, which I've asked before, is there's the, The 21st Century Policing Report is coming out in the fall, which I learned at our last conversation about this, and we didn't have a very deep discussion about that report, but as I've learned more about it, it to me does seem relevant in this conversation where we are ideally, hopefully going to get some very good data and information about the practices of law enforcement in our community and the results and outcomes of that. And so, yeah, I'm just curious why, why we're moving this commission forward now before we have access to this information that was, I believe, requested by the same task force that has motivated this commission as well.

So is your question around timing? I think it's, it's around timing and how this report could even impact or interact with the commission after it's theoretically already been set based on our timing. Yeah, and I think we answered this before, that we, we did not consider that particular report in the process of developing this, but I would just say in general that that there is a lot of data coming out right now from the Anchorage Police Department, from the independent reviews that have happened and from their internal reviews that have happened. There's national information that is coming out. And so this is really valuable data for a community commission to really look at and understand as it relates to how they will continue to be involved in helping our agencies improve.

And so I think it's exciting that it's coming out, and I think it's really timely because it'll give them an opportunity to review it and react to it. So that's— so I don't think in terms of the creation of this, it wasn't considered in terms of the timing, but I think it's part of why this exists. We want this to exist so that this commission can have access to that information and use it as part of their their advisory functions. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that's—. Yeah, sort of.

I guess I'll just say, and I'll stop after this, I don't mean to dominate the conversation, but in my position taking a vote on this potentially next week, I'm going to have a hard time doing that without the timely and local data. In front of me. If, if, because, yeah, because the data, if it's really positive, and I believe Chief Case is doing a great job, I really appreciate his leadership within our police department, the amount of time and attention he pays to the well-being of his staff. Community policing is discussed a lot. And so, you know, based on that report, maybe we don't need investigative authority in the commission.

But if that report surfaces a lot of problems, to me that impacts how this should be structured. So I think there's a double-edged sword there and just more information that's about to become available that I believe is relevant to how we structure this commission. And it feels hard for me to— it feels kind of cart before the horse here to be waiting for a local report to come out after, yeah, to have that report come out after we've already decided basically how we're going to deal with it. So that's just my perspective. Brief, and I really, really appreciate that.

We were talking with one of the community organizations recently about this, and I asked the question of why do you want investigative authority and then subpoena power? Like, what is the reason that you would want that? And I suggested that part of the reason is because you want accurate information, you want to know the truth about what's happening with our departments, and you want to be able to, to be able to take some action as it relates to that, right? That's what we want too. We want accurate information from research like this, but I don't necessarily think— the question is we both want the same thing, but whether this body has the authority to get to, to ask for it, or whether you ask for it through the assembly or through the ombudsman or through a variety of other things.

So if they can get accurate information, then that's great. That's exactly what we want. So I'm just— I would just say that, that, that regardless whether the information is, is positive or constructive or whatever it is, it's good information for us to, to improve with. But I don't know from my perspective whether that means that this body needs a certain level of power versus just access to the information that we all should have access process too. So just a thought for you.

Yeah, thanks. And I'll just briefly add for timeline, um, certainly, yeah, this, this has spanned kind of multiple members, uh, terms essentially, uh, just to remind folks. So in November 2024, myself, Mr. Perez-Fruedia, Mr. Rivera attempted to run a budget amendment to fund this task force work. That did not pass. First quarter budget revisions for FY25, so that was April 2025, uh, we were able to get some funding for the facilitator contract that we used for the task force that kicked off a year ago.

I think it was June or maybe July and finished up in December. And then this ordinance was introduced of April of this year, and then this will— it was first on the agenda in May and then it's now here. So that's the timeline. So next I have Mr. Handline. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just have a quick question for the sponsors on the administrative support with, I guess, why you guys structured it with having the rotating staff, because I was just kind of worried more about kind of from a government efficiency standpoint if you you've got staff that are, I guess, are working on projects and stuff and then like, hey, now we're having to pass it off to a completely different department. How does that work? And so I don't know if maybe staff support is relatively minor for something like this, but just kind of curious on your thoughts on that.

So the rotating of the staff was intentionally so that one particular department didn't wasn't the only— this is staffing. And I think that because this commission is broader than one department, so that was the reason for it in terms of— I imagined it being each year. So it would be, you know, each, each, each, each, you know, budget year, a different department would sort of pick it up. But the reason for it was to share the load, to make sure that there is broad representation in terms of the staffing. And certainly that could happen where it's passed off from one to the next.

But my sort of assumption at least was that it would not change within a year, that it would be handed off year to year. Yeah, and I'll just note in the S1 version, so if you go to page 5, administrative support, and some of this language has been there, but just to be clear what we have here now, so we have 3 departments, Police Department, Fire Department, Office of Emergency Management. And then at the top of page 6, we did word it a little bit more flexibly. We said at a minimum, this shall rotate once a year with each change in responsibility reported to the assembly. So that could also be written to say, to make it more discretionary.

And then it also receives legal counsel from the Municipal Attorney's Office. So they're not listed for administrative support because the idea is they would be involved throughout in the role of counsel. And then we did not include the Health Department here, even though they're certainly important because we know that they have multiple other commissions a lot of other duties. And so more recognizing kind of the administrative capacity of that department versus that— not, not that the others have a bunch of extra time, you know, and are sitting around, but, um, but our— at least two of them are much larger departments. Thanks.

Yeah, I guess just got a quick call. I guess, have you guys, I guess, talked with the administration on like, I guess, how that would, would work and they're, I guess, good with doing the handoffs, or So we have had conversations with the mayor's office and with the different departments about this ordinance in general, and that was not an issue that came up for them in terms of being concerned about it. But I can tell you, I did not ask that specifically of them, but the feedback that we've gotten, we have not received feedback about that being a problem. So next I have Ms. Baldwin-Day, then Ms. Keller. Yeah, thank you.

I think my questions may follow on to Member Handelands here. How, how many roughly people hours do we expect to be involved in the staffing and administration role?

So, like, on an annual basis, I think Mr. Gates could also speak to this in terms of other commissions because I think there's probably some similar commissions that, that would be— he can speak to as a comparison.

Do you want to give it a shot? I mean, I can spitball it, but I think you may have more more experience. I've got some friends. Yeah, I mean, again, you're talking about monthly meetings, and you're talking about somebody who would, you know, hold the meeting and help with, you know, gathering the notes and that sort of thing. I think typical commissions that I've been involved with have a similar amount of staffing, so we're looking at the same kind of staffing as I think most commissions.

I don't see this as being more or less. I don't know if you have anything to add to that. Yeah, I can. I mean, I've certainly never staffed a commission here. I've been on the Budget Advisory Commission.

That one does meet monthly. It is advisory. And so I would separate it from something like, say, the Planning and Zoning Commission that is processing a lot of cases. And so that's not a good analog for staff time in general. But I think that is a question.

We have this question about training. We can also kind of ask what is a rough, you know, number of hours per month. For staffing, those kinds of things. I would say for OMB, my guess is it's between maybe 4 and 6 hours a month. Usually for every hour of meeting, you have about 1 to 2 hours of prep.

And so, and, and I think the idea is that there'd be these other departments involved. And so there's the administrative task of publishing the agenda, you know, similar to what our clerk staff does. Our clerk staff is not doing all of the policy work. They're not having all the discussions. When I was chair of Budget Advisory Commission, I worked very closely with the staff to develop the agenda.

So it was also on the leadership of that commission to to say kind of what do we want to talk about, etc. And so I think it is a shared responsibility. So, but I think we can get a sense of kind of what does a typical advisory commission take to run at the base administrative level. And then I think the more complex and more active that commission is, that's what really drives more staff time, but it's also because they're doing their work. Yeah, thank you.

That's helpful. I'm assuming that we don't already have folks in police, fire, and OEM that are trained in providing this kind of commission support. So I'm just wondering who would be providing that training to folks in each of these departments if this is the model that we move forward with.

Training for the staff support? Correct. I see. Okay. I don't know.

That, that's a good, good question to ask. We need to ask that. They certainly— those departments have staffed commissions before. And have folks that have done that, but I don't actually know what, what, what requirements for training to staff would be involved. Okay.

Um, was there any conversation about couching administrative and staff support in a completely separate department? So like the ombuds or OEJ or something like that? Yes, one of the amendments came forward suggesting the Office of Equity and Justice. So we certainly had a conversation around that. I think the concern that, that we shared was departments that had a very small budget and very few staff.

So, but I would be open to expanding that to other departments. I just want to be realistic in terms of their capacity and ability to actually do that work. Sure, yeah, I appreciate that. I think I feel similarly protective of police, fire, and OEM. So one— sorry, can I just add?

Yes, please. I think the other thing we discussed was boards and commissions generally sit with the mayor's office, and so that is an option. But of course having mayor's office staff some commission like that doesn't necessarily make, make it more, have more longevity. And of course, it depends on how they organize their staffing. The other thing we did discuss is the clerk's office.

Certainly they staff certain boards, but it becomes challenging because most boards and commissions sit within the executive branch. There's only a few that sit within our branch. And so, and that would really disconnect them from, I think, the kind of meeting administration piece versus the content. And so that was the other consideration. Thank you.

So along similar lines, the, the ex officio members who are mayoral appointees— am I reading this correctly? My understanding is that those would be appointed by the departments themselves. Appointed by the departments. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

Oh, One Scrivener's error that's at the top of page 4, line 2: "5 ex officio members appointed consisted," and then the code citation. I think that should probably read "consistent with." That's just a Scrivener's error that's neither here nor there.

A follow-up on the, the community engagement. I'm on page 6, line 28.

Serves as a structured forum for community input and engagement by holding public hearings on any subject within the scope of its purpose. Emma, are we to understand that the enumeration of that purpose is this first bullet, um, A, under Public Safety Partnership Commission on page 3? Is this the purpose statement, A1 through 5? Um, I can speak to that. I think, um, I would see this entire section as the purpose.

And I think one thing we thought about really closely was what we put in code that can provide a roadmap for someone years from now that may, you know, that we maybe can't contemplate the situation they're in. So I would say the purpose is Section A. It says what they shall do. There's also the powers and duties that outlines it in more detail. And so I would say it's not limited to that.

Section. Okay, I noticed in that section there's no specific language around drafting recommendation— recommendations. Is that, is that assumed under advise the mayor and assembly, or— I don't see like resolutions or recommendations or policy solutions enumerated here in this section.

I would assume that is assumed by me that the recommendation coming from this commission would be in writing and that they would in some way approve a resolution of some kind to make a recommendation to the Assembly or to the mayor. Okay. But we can certainly add that language if you wish. Okay. Connected to resolutions, under the authority section on page 7, line 26, requests for records shall be in the form of a resolution approved by a majority of the commissioners.

Is there a reason that records requests are sort of firewalled in this way and they must be in the form of a resolution rather than a general records request as a member of the public would submit? I can, I can speak to that. So one, to back up, the page, top of page 6, there's the advisory role. It does say recommendations. I think we could be more clear in what those could look like, but I think it is typical for commissions to act in the form of a resolution because they're a body.

The reason we wrote the public records request that way is is we really talked again about kind of the, you know, the risks and what you're putting in code and what you're authorizing folks to do. So what we talked about was a scenario in which a, let's say, a very zealous or very interested individual member who is empowered as a commissioner starts speaking either on behalf of the commission or makes independent records requests that are not requested by the commission as a body. I think the challenge with boards and commissions even more so than us as a legislative body is the only way that they can act is as a body. They are not individually empowered to do anything. And so we wanted to make sure that that was very clear, again, as a protection both for the Commission and really the muni as a whole, that we, that we make sure it's clear that, you know, you can't show up with your Commissioner badge to the clerk's office and say, I'm making all these records requests, when none of the other Commissioners or the body has not acted on it, and making sure that folks don't go rogue, I guess, in that sense.

So, and again, because really the only way these commissions can act as a body, and so to do that they have to be by a majority vote. And so we— that's why we wrote it that way. Would requests of this nature from the Commission be treated differently than records requests from a regular member of the community? I think, um, so we said essentially in here somewhere else that they would only have access to public information, so they would not be requesting confidential information, etc., except out if it's within the scope of a records request. And I think they would also be therefore are having access probably for free to records requests.

So they are not triggering the cost that the, that the Commission would have to incur if they're asking for something versus a member of the public who may make the same records request but might have to pay a cost depending on what that is. Does anything about this constrain a seated commissioner from requesting records that might fall under their purview as a commissioner, but doing so as a member of the public? Instead of a commissioner? I don't think so. I don't see how it would.

I guess Dean would chime in if not. I think the question is, are they acting as a member of the public or are they acting as a member of the Commission? And if they're acting as a member of the Commission, they should not be empowered to do something that the Commission has not empowered them to do individually, right? I guess I'm just struggling. I'm struggling to see, other than cost, what the, what the substantive difference would be between a request that comes from the Commission and versus a request that comes from the member, a member of the public.

Um, so if the, if the differentiator is cost, great. Um, but I think it would be helpful to have that more clearly spelled out, that this is how a request from commissioners would be treated differently than a request from a member of the public. So just a comment there. Um, fair point. I would note one other, um, situation would be that the commission, like all of us, needs to meet in public, and so all of their documents would be public.

So I would imagine that if they are making a request and they get that request, that it would be become part of their own meeting record and attached to one of their agendas versus a member of the public. It's up to them if they want to make any, any of that information public beyond themselves. Got it. Okay. Next bullet, convene a joint conference with the Municipal Audit Committee.

As the chair of the Municipal Audit Committee, I would really love to know what exactly is envisioned by this and what is, what is the, what is the potential relationship or what kinds of things would be contemplated in this kind of joint session? Yeah, I can speak a little bit to that. You know, one of the things that we envision with this commission is that they have access to relevant information about the public safety departments that can help them to understand them and make recommendations around them. And so the Audit Committee does internal audits. And so each year, that may be an opportunity for this Commission to meet with the Audit Committee and learn what audits they're going to be doing that year and what ones are relevant to the work that the Commission's doing.

It may also be an opportunity for the Commission to request an audit, to say, is it possible to audit this or that, and add that to the schedule of audits for that year. So it's an opportunity, I think, to, to work in conjunction and potentially provide more information to this Commission so they can do their work. Okay, thank you.

Let's see.

I think the last question I have is really a 30,000-foot view question, And it's one that's been percolating for me since the inception of this proposal, since the original version. And I've dug through the notes, the minutes from the task force, and sort of looked at the historical documents, if you will. And what I still am not clear on is really what is the problem we are trying to solve. And in all of the documentation I've worked through, I don't really see consensus on that question. What, what is the problem we're trying to solve?

So I'm really curious to hear the sponsors articulate what we are trying to do differently here, uh, and, and where the consensus lies for that sort of determination or that goal.

You want me to start? Let me go back to a note that I had here. So the assumption— well, first of all, we don't currently have a commission that allows the public to come and to have a seat at the table and have conversations about our public safety systems and Anchorage and to bring public voice and input to, to develop. So that, that does not exist. So one is, is creating that, and, and there is a belief that that is valuable and important and can ultimately improve the systems that we have and improve public safety in Anchorage.

So that, that's one of the underlying assumptions, that the public involvement, public input into what we do as a, as a city that serves them is important. So that's first. The second is that there is also not a way in this space to tackle some of the really challenging issues that we face both currently and in the future. And so that's really, I think, the larger premise is, is, is how do we create space for that. So that's, I think, for me, the most important thing is, is that we, that we do that and that we will be better as a city and better as these departments because of that process.

And, and I guess the last thing I would just say is, is that I think we often in, in these departments and in these roles that we play think we have a good sense of what's happening in the community or what the concerns are or what's working or what's not. And this is, I think, a really valuable way to have, as the ombudsman, as this ombudsman said, the deputy ombudsman, a temperature into what's happening in our community and so that we can be responsive to that. So that's, I think, the most important things for me. Yeah, I'll just add, I don't take it as a premise that this has to exist. I again would say I believe it's better if it does exist, and that's why I've been involved in this project.

And I think the alternative, um, that really that exists now is the Assembly Public Safety Committee, right? And so the question is, is that a sufficient forum, or is that the best forum, or is that— and not— and I mean, the committee's fine, right? But it has a different function than what a commission— what any of these commissions would do. So I think that's really a question. It's like, if for these conversations We don't need to have one place for them, but what should those place or places be?

And this is a tool that we have within the systems that we have. So if we decide to make this exist.

I appreciate that. One follow-up question is, you know, with respect to the challenging issues that we currently have, you know, place to tackle in the understanding of the sponsors, what are those specific challenging issues?

I can respond to that. I think some that come to mind just in the last year, I think the conversation about license plate readers, you know, that was ultimately an amendment to a contract that we already had with Axon. But after the fact, there was a lot of public concern and question, partly because of what's happening in other places, partly that lack of information. I think that, that is a missed opportunity we could have had to have that discussion, and that is not to knock APD's process. I think that's just how it played out.

Another one is the wildfire discussion. Again, that a lot of that is happening, a lot of I think the work that AFD is doing is great. I think it'd be interesting to have more opportunity beyond kind of the open houses that they've had to have those discussions. I think the question about what to do with drug distribution and helping folks understand what that looks like beyond just our Assembly Committee is an interesting one. I think another big one that I know Chief Case has brought up is violence prevention.

That is certainly— and the issue of guns, right? There's a whole bunch of things tied up with that, but I think the question is like, how How can we reduce violence in the community, period? And I think that is an interesting question to dig into. And I think there's a lot of ripe work there to bring a lot of different partners to the table. And it doesn't have to be a commission, but that's certainly, you know, some folks need to convene and start figuring that out or continue figuring that out.

So those are just some examples that come to mind. I would just add that the entire body of work around crisis response. I think that's a, that's a, it's a huge issue that has to involve a broad base of the community. And one of the things that I envision with this commission is that it truly does have representation that allows these conversations to, to access parts of our community that we don't often see showing up at the Public Safety Committee, that that we bring people into this commission that have access into issues around mental health, issues around the tag that allow to go into parts of our community that we don't often see showing up at meetings. And we had a committee a few years back during COVID that worked with the Health Department that brought representatives from different parts of our community And it was incredibly successful because those people had networks and access to parts of the community that often are really hard to communicate with.

And I would like to see some of those folks on this commission and allowing us to have a better relationship with them. So just a couple of thoughts. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate sort of that insight into the sponsor's conception of this.

I think I'm struggling to connect the dots as to that understanding of this body versus what came out of the task force itself, which felt far more narrowly constructed in terms of this really being about policing. And so I think that's a tension I'm sitting in. Just with respect to this project as a whole, is the connective tissue that sort of spans along this whole process and kind of where we've landed with this ordinance at this point. I think that is all my questions for now, and I don't want to get in the way of us working through amendments. So thank you.

Thanks. Yeah, we— well, right now, so we can extend the work session. We have a half hour right now. I have two more folks in the queue. And so I'll suggest we work through those folks in the queue and then maybe go to amendments.

And then I imagine that will also generate more conversation as well. So go ahead, Ms. Silvers, and then Ms. Scott. So I want to ask a couple about a couple of the specific points here.

Page 6, line 22, the Commission may request an independent review. Can you tell me what the limits on that power are? Like, let's say we have a Commission that is, as you said earlier, you know, zealous and super interested in their— they, you know, want this independent review and this one and this one and that one and this one. What are the limits on that? Can the department say like, you know, choose one and let's see how that works out, or can you just talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, I can respond to that. I think what we imagined would be, well, one, that most actions this body would take, if not all of them, would be in the form of a resolution. So I would imagine, let's say there's some critical incident, Commission meets, decides to say we'd like to see an independent investigation, they pass a resolution requesting that, and I think that would be in terms of kind of their authority, that's the end of it. And so the administration or the department involved could choose to honor that request. They could choose to, you know, they could choose to respond to it in some way.

But this was not written in any way to compel or to require or to set up an expectation that if the Commission asked for something that they would always get what they're asking for. So it really is— the power that they have is to make that request and make it clear that they can do that if they feel it is warranted. But not that there is a required response or that it triggers that they have to pick one or that they— So yeah, they could ask for 50 independent investigations and they could be granted 50 or zero or somewhere in between. And what would the cost of an independent review be? I believe we've done a couple of those.

I think we might have some idea on that.

Yeah, I think we don't have that. Yeah, I don't know if we have a number for that. I mean, I would just also say that we— I've been, you know, engaged with a few of these over the, over the few years. They really depend on the scope of them and just a variety of things. So, but if that's something that you wish, we can probably get some examples.

Okay. And then I had the same question, and I assume the answer would be the same on like requests and received briefings. Receive early briefings on upcoming policy changes, convene stakeholder meetings to bring together public and private agencies. I would kind of assume that the power is the same, that there is a request that could or could not be honored. When I look at these points, like, as well as the conducting listening sessions.

Like, I just see, I see time, time, time, time.

I don't know how many of these things would require staff support.

But yeah, I guess I just want to reiterate that I think it's really important that we get a realistic picture of the time involved, and maybe that takes going over each one of these, like, bullet points here. And, you know, how many hours would you expect this to take? How many hours would you expect this to take? How much would an independent review cost? How much, you know, would it cost in hours and time for the public records requests?

So I guess I just— I don't want to continue to kick this horse, but I think we need more information on the time and the cost associated with this. Thanks.

Okay, uh, next, Ms. Gao. Thank you. Just a couple more questions here that I'm trying to keep big picture before we get into amendments. Um, one thing I've been curious about regarding the conversation about representation and especially the feedback that Chair Brawley mentioned around not, um, about the representation being out of whack in the past commission. That makes total sense to me when there are people who are able to allocate work hours to showing up to a commission versus volunteers from the public.

And I just, I don't see that problem being solved here without some offer of compensation or something for members of the public serving on this commission, which I know we are all accountable to a very constrained budget at this time. But it just, it seems like an imbalance from the start. If I'm able to show up to a conversation in my work capacity and somebody else is showing up as a volunteer, of course I'm going to have more time to dedicate to it and to be able to be more consistent and to be able to prioritize it. Over the other demands of my life as a working person. So I'm really struggling with that piece right now and just want to share that, and I'm curious about the conversations around compensation for public involvement.

Is that something that was considered? Boy, I agree with you. I wish, I wish we could compensate all people that actually serve on commissions. I I think it would be a wonderful thing. But no, I mean, I think there's probably some constraints we have that Dean can maybe speak to, but that was not considered because it's not something that, to my knowledge, we do in the municipality.

Okay. And I can just briefly add, I know that specific discussion and recommendation has come up with the House Lived Experience Advisory Commission, the Equity Committee that Cameron brought up earlier. And a number of them, but it is, it is really, it gets more to the core of when we ask members of the community to do government functions. What does that look like? Planning and Zoning Commission, I don't believe they get a copy.

I keep coming back to them because I know they meet twice a month and have very big packets. So it is just a challenge with the way that our government is set up. Yeah, and with PCC, I think when I look at that list of folks, I think a lot of them are able to bill their work or include it as part, you know, flex time for their involvement in something like that. And for this commission, we could end up with folks who work at nonprofits or different businesses that are interested in this. But then that, again, that doesn't solve our representation or equity issues that it sounds like existed prior.

I have another just bigger picture question. Around the code around this. Are these commissions, are they able to hold executive session? Are they able to meet without the public? I'm going to kick that one to Mr. Gates.

You know, they can.

Oh, yes, Mr. Hurt, go ahead.

Um, yes, there's a provision in Title IV, and of course now that I want to cite it, my internet—. But, um, there's a provision in Title IV that provides for board—. Uh, I think the word is executive session. It provides the same basis it has to. Mr. Herger, your audio is a little choppy.

Um, it sounds like what you're stating is Title IV generally allows boards and commissions to engage in executive session. Is that correct?

Yes, Madam Chair. Sorry, I'm switching devices. I'm having a lot of trouble with connectivity right now. But yes, Title IV has a provision for all boards and commissions to go into executive session with the same legal basis that the assembly has in code, essentially. So this commission could, relying on that authority, meet in executive session if they could lay the proper foundation.

Thank you. My, my last question, and this is maybe getting into amendment land, so I can table if requested, is whether there is analysis done on the cost of an external neutral facilitator and/or staff versus the cost of internal staff being dedicated to facilitating the commission. Yeah, I can— so we did not specifically cost that out. I mean, I can share the task force which of course had a different scope, it was shorter time but more intensive work, was $30,000. And I would, in my prior life, I have done contracts on the order of maybe $30,000 to $50,000 for admin support for coalitions and things like that.

So I think, so it's not something that we specifically contemplated here, but I think that's probably the rough order of magnitude for someone. And that wouldn't be, obviously be a full-time person, It's really just having a consistent point of contact and person who's doing that work. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Dean, go ahead. I would just add that an outside facilitator wouldn't have access to the systems that we have for the logistics setting up. So they would still need to have some staff support plus if you had a facilitator outside. Helpful. Thank you.

Okay, so we have about 20 minutes left. Let's move to amendments. So I will note we have an amendment packet, and I'm just double-checking something. So I know there's a number of different sponsor amendments here. I'll just note that I'm just checking the first one.

We're going to skip because that one was put into the S-1 version, and I will also note I know that most of these were written for the S-1 version. Version, so just asking folks to speak to— I guess it is up to you if you would like to speak to them at all, if you want to signal whether you may intend to make changes to this, but otherwise we can walk through the concept. So unless there's objection, I'll just go through the packet as it's printed here. So the first one is, um, uh, the first from Members Gerker, Johnson, Handeland, um, Amendment Number 2, if you'd like to speak to that one. Or I guess I'll throw it to you guys if you would like to choose which one wants to speak to.

Yeah, I'll speak to this briefly. You know, I think one of the stated goals of this commission is to—. Sorry, can I mention one thing briefly? Yes, go ahead. Sorry, most of these drafted for the S version and not the S1, so we may have adjustments between now and Tuesday to fit them.

Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Johnson. I'll start by saying I think this is still relevant for the S1 version, so we do intend to move forward with it. But yeah, I, I think just to speak briefly, you know, I mean, we've talked about one of the important roles for this commission is to bring in a broad range of lived experiences that we think are relevant to public safety. And certainly those who are affected by crime personally as victims is, I think, we believe, an important perspective to bring in that conversation.

So this would just designate— I think we just said one seat to somebody who has that particular experience with The, the actual code language you can see on the second page is fairly brief, but it references some state statutes that we have in the purpose statement that I think clarifies what we mean when we say victim. And again, it's just about somebody who has been a victim of a crime, which certainly, as any of us who have been know, it's, it's, it's a deeply affecting experience and one that I think would be useful if not necessary for this Commission. Okay, and in the interest of time, what I'll ask folks to do is, um, maybe we can run through the amendments. If you have a clarifying question, we'll ask folks to speak to it, and if it's more substantive, um, come back to it, if that's okay. And then we'll see how far we get with that.

Um, so, uh, thank you. So the next one, um, also, uh, E3 number 3, if you want to speak to that one. Yeah, I'll speak to this one as well. And yes, it's our intention to move forward this amendment. So the commission, as envisioned in each of the versions, including the S-1, sets a ceiling on the maximum number of seats that could be for people with professional experience in public safety.

So it's a cap of 3. I mean, previously employed by police, fire, or OEM. The issue that we're trying to potentially address here is that's the ceiling. There's no floor in the ordinances drafted on a minimum number of people who have had that experience. And I will tell everyone, as you know, having been a law enforcement officer, that it is hard to understand the job until you've done the job.

And when we talk about a commission that is meant to bring together variety of perspectives and serve as a partnership. I think that that's a pretty important voice to hear, and clearly it's contemplated by the sponsors that that voice would be present. But when we don't have a minimum number of seats, is entirely possible, if not foreseeable, at some point that we might have no one with actual lived experience as a public safety officer or family member on this commission, which I think would really just throw it out of whack. To borrow the term we've been using, but in a different direction. So that is the concern.

So this would set minimum number of seats as 2, and those would be for people with law enforcement experience. No disrespect to fire department or OEM, but I think we, we have all more or less agreed that the, the primary nexus of this commission is related to the work that the police department does. So this would say at least a minimum of 2 have to have been LEOs or family members, and then we also raise the cap to not more than 4. So it would still ensure that it is a minority, minority of the voting seats on the board so that, you know, it doesn't become overly tipped towards law enforcement interests, but it does, I would say, argue, provide a little bit more balance.

Okay, next we have Amendment 4 from the same group. Yeah, I conducted that one. So I mean, this one's pretty simple, and I I mean, no persons with a conviction of a felony or violent crime may serve on this commission. I mean, similar to if you were having a commission that involves budgetary items, you don't want someone who's got a history of fraud on that. And so this is just a fairly simple amendment to just kind of clarify that where, yeah, no person with a violent or a felony or a violent crime.

And then we have the state statute that defines that.

Chair, can I ask a clarifying question? Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Just want to ask a clarifying question of Dean. Do we in any of our commissions require, uh, background checks that are relevant to the role of that commission?

Uh, you're asking about other commissions that currently exist, or do you mean this one? No, I'm, I'm asking about other commissions. We An example was given, for instance, if you have gone into bankruptcy or fraud or something like that and you are on the Budget Advisory Commission, that maybe you wouldn't be qualified for it, or if there are sort of background checks in any way that are relevant to other commissions. I'm wondering if this is new.

You know, I would really have to go and check, but I would say that that some commissions and boards have certain qualifications for its members that might include currently validly licensed as a professional in this area, and sometimes they're convicted of fraud, going to lose your license, you know, for a financial broker or something like that. So they wouldn't qualify for the CEE because of conviction, although it may not directly say it. And I'm trying to recall if we have some that also have very explicitly cannot have some criminal conviction or background. I would need some time to answer that. Mr. Hook, if you're able to answer, I invite you to speak.

I would really prefer to be having connection difficulties right now, if possible. Okay. Yeah, I can't answer that off the top of my head. Okay. So yeah, I agree, I'll have to get back to you on that.

Okay, thank you. Okay, yeah, that's a research question. The only one I can think of, because I remember we created this board recently, was the Investment Trust Board. I believe that there is a background check regarding financial crimes, but that is because they have direct oversight over a fund versus advisory. So, so that's the only one I can think of.

But Ms. Baldende, go ahead. Question. Thank you. Did the sponsors contemplate a time ceiling on this prohibition? Within the last—.

Yeah, I'm wondering if you contemplated, you know, someone who has like 15 years sobriety and had a felony drug conviction, and now they are, I don't know, running a mental and behavioral health operation in Anchorage, and they would like to serve on this commission, and they cannot do so because they have a felony drug conviction that was 15 years old.

I don't think that's something we contemplated, but I think we'd maybe be open to something on that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I don't see any other questions on that one, so let's Move to number 5. Um, so now we're moving to— I think Ms. Scout has a few amendments, so if you want to speak, and you can speak to them in any order, but we'll start with this one. Yeah.

Um, so Amendment 5 adds investigative authority and subpoena power to the commission while maintaining, um, the limitations of the commission, including, um, they are not able to influence personnel decisions. Disciplinary decisions that's covered, um, in the union contract. So the point of this is to provide enhanced access and advisory capability for members of the commission beyond members of the public. Right now, when I look at, um, if I'm an advocate in the public safety realm I would be more effective not sitting on this commission. And I also believe that the answer to my question around executive session being clearly defined as something that this commission can do and hold makes it so that having investigations, having subpoena power is not a risk to the confidential, confidential nature of these documents and of conversations that might be taking place at the Commission.

Um, but I believe that the Commission, in order to be effective, needs to have enhanced access beyond members of the public, um, and needs to be able to actually make recommendations grounded in real facts real data, real conversations with people involved in potential incidents and systemic level patterns.

Can I ask a clarifying question? Just, I want to have you clarify the word conduct, which means to me that the actual members of this Commission would themselves be conducting the investigation into criminal cases or to, um, so that they themselves would do that? Is that, is that what you intend? My intention is that the, the commission as a whole, not individual members.

So they, in, in a scenario where an investigation is being conducted, I, I believe it would be, there would be some sort of plan for commissioners and staff to work together to put together the pieces of an investigation. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding that the, the members of the commission, they, they themselves, as a, as a, as the individuals in there, are, are themselves conducting the investigations. That's why I'm just making sure I understand that.

I guess I— yeah, that's a fair question. I haven't gotten that granular in, in my amendment. It's the commission as a whole has the authority. So my assumption would be that, um, there would be a call for an investigation and then there would be some process to decide who conducts it. It likely— I think it'd be most likely that it's some sort of outside investigator, or if it's within the scope of what staff are able to do, etc., but I don't think it's individual members of the public or members of the Commission that are going out, like, yeah.

Thanks.

Mr. Gates, go ahead. Uh, thank you. It's going to be a power of the body, the Commission as a body, like, um, Scott was saying, but that body could also delegate some of that to, for example, the chair to a subcommittee of 3 to do a report back, or, um, as Ms. Scott said, they could have a third person or outside investigator, but the body's control of the investigation scope of work and the request, and they receive a report from that investigator. Yeah, so I think that's how it would work. There's a number of ways that it can be done.

Thank you. And, and I'm— we can explore this more, but, um, would that change the, um, the requirements for the people who serve? Would they need to receive a different level of training, a different level of legal authority? Would that change who can actually serve on this Commission or how they are seated or prepared?

Well, would they require, I'm not sure, but that's an excellent idea in practice. To make sure whoever conducts investigation has, you know, experience, training, and so forth. Thanks. I have Ms. Baldwin, then Mr. Hanlon. Thank you.

I just want to clarify. So, um, so the sponsor's intent here is that the commission as a whole would essentially like commission an investigation. They, they would, they would be compelling an investigation. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I'm realizing now, maybe I, I do plan to bring this amendment back, and, um, I might change that first word in number 5, uh, letter D, to clarify that it's commission and not conduct on its own, because I understand that particular word could be confusing here.

One follow-up question then, um, has the sponsor contemplated how or whom would pay— would, yeah, what entity would pay for such an investigation? No. Thank you. You do the work session. Um, next, Mr. Handlin.

Yeah, I was just going to ask, uh, do we need a motion to extend?

Good question. We don't formally need a motion. I will ask, um, if we Let's say go 15 minutes to 1:45. Does that work for folks? Okay.

Yeah, I know this is a big substantive topic. So, and then I had a question for the sponsor. So on this, um, is there any— it talks about conducting the investigation, but then I guess the results of that recommendations or anything like that, there seems to be conducting the investigation and then, um, it seems to end there. And so I guess the process afterwards, would they be sending that to the Assembly? Would they be, I guess, providing a recommendation, doing some analysis on it, or what do you envision?

Yeah, the— I believe that the process for the next steps is already defined. It was defined in the S version and is still defined in the S-1, where, as we discussed earlier, as it's proposed now, the Commission would then make a resolution to the Assembly, but really the intent of this amendment is to provide better information to the Commission to make recommendations to the Assembly. But I, I believe the process for how they recommend is already outlined.

Uh, Ms. Silvers, then Mr.

I hate to say the same thing over and over again, but I think that this amendment would need a summary of economic effects. Thanks.

Yes, Mr. Presby, then Ms. Bouldervay. Do you imagine that the information shared through the investigation that is not public would be shared with this commission? The sort of— if, if an investigation was conducted and it provided information that was typically not shared with the public, you envision this Commission having access to that information? Yes, and that is why I, I clarified off the record and wanted to clarify on the record today that this Commission can meet in executive session, um, right, so that they can receive information that is not available to the public. Thanks for the clarification.

Okay, next was Baldwin Day. Yeah, so I'm interested in the interaction between, um, the ability to subpoena the attendance of persons and the production of testimony or records in an inquiry, investigation, hearing, or proceeding before the Commission, and then the related limitation that says engage with or seek information regarding active investigations. I'm assuming active investigations is referring to policing fairly narrowly. Okay, so the subpoena power would not extend to active investigations, and it would not extend to personnel or disciplinary matters.

I think I have different answers to those two categories, so My intent with this agenda is yes, that if there's an active investigation, for example, an officer-involved shooting and there's an investigation already going on, the commission would not be able to step in and run their own investigation.

That just causes— I think that would be ripe for causing chaos and confusion. So, you know, if there's an investigation that happens around an incident that then the Commission wants to run a follow-up investigation after the internal investigation has happened, I think that's fair game. But while an investigation is happening, that is protected. The second piece around disciplinary decisions, Sorry, can you repeat the question? Sure.

And so I'm curious about how this, the subpoena, the option to subpoena interacts with the limitation in item 6 on participating in or influencing, you know, personnel or disciplinary decisions. So, so this body could not in fact subpoena personnel records et cetera. That's not my understanding. I believe they could subpoena personnel and records, but they could not be doing it for the objective of influencing personnel disciplinary decisions. So if it's part of the investigation to understand the facts, what happened here, et cetera, but The intent cannot be, we think XYZ person should be placed on leave or fired.

It's more system policy level and not about individuals. Yeah, that's my intention. Madam Chair, I have a question. Yes, sorry, Ms. Park, if you had texted, sorry if I missed it. I can put you in the queue.

Just one second. Thank you, Ms. Baldwin-Dave. Yeah, I just had one last follow-up as to, you know, do we know, do we have any, any clarity from legal around how this might interact with current CBAs in place with APDEA?

I don't know right now, but we would have to get back to you. I think I would make one short comment that, I mean, in a timeline of personnel actions and discipline, I think most of that would be concluded before the Commission gets around to, like, asking to see some record of it. So, I mean, and again, it's not for participation, but maybe just to review. I think that's the intent.

Yeah, I think it would be important to have some some specificity and clarity around that. That's a legal quagmire that we probably would like to avoid.

Okay, next, Ms. Park.

Yes, thank you. Kind of a follow-up on Mr. Perez-Berdia's question regarding the sharing of information. A lot of, a lot of this discussion is around policing and criminal action. There may be incidents that implicate larger civil litigation occurring, and my concern is that this partnership of basically lay people will have information to which no privilege applies. And I'm concerned about that controlling the flow of information or misinformation that might affect the rights of some litigants.

So I guess that's a question for Member Scout. I think that's fairly easily solved for. I mean, we in our oath and as part of our work as Assembly members have access to privileged information, and I feel a strong sense of clarity about which information I'm receiving is public or not and about the ramifications of sharing information that is not public. I think that could be pretty easily solved for with agreements of members of the Commission and non-disclosure agreements specifically around what's shared in executive session.

It was a pretty common practice and seen in many commissions of this kind.

Okay, let's move on then. Thank you. Thank you. Let's move on to Amendment 6 then, Scout. Yeah, Amendment 6.

Um, I mentioned this in some of my earlier questions. I do plan to— well, I'm contemplating bringing this back with regards to the S version. I had concerns that staffing was just within one department. Um, as someone who does paid facilitation myself, and I know how important it is to have neutrality in these kinds of spaces, um, and with these conversations.

And I still have concerns in the S1 version about the efficiency of rotating around who is staffing the commission. And I also have concerns, you know, the staff that are proposed in the rotation, they represent 3 departments, but there is nobody in that representation who is representing the public. So again, thinking about the power dynamics, the importance of neutrality and staffing these kinds of commissions and conversations, and wanting to get this right and solve the problems that had this commission go away in the past.

Mr. Johnson. Yeah, thank you. And maybe you don't have the answer to this right now, but if this was to be written for the S-1 version, would it— since the S-1 has 3 different departments, would it essentially replace all those with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, or would it just take out the police department and leave and fire an OEM and they're rotating. I am— Kim, who is the head of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, is out this week, and so I'm meeting with her on Monday and hope to have a clear answer to that question. But yeah, the intention of— in the S version was, okay, if there's one department staffing this I don't know that adding a fourth department into the rotation would solve the efficiency issue.

So, um, yeah, open to your all's thoughts, but I believe it's really critical to have a neutral facilitator and staff in this situation, and also for there to be some staffing setup where, um, at least one portion of the staff feels that they are representative of the public and not any specific employee. Thank you. Okay, don't see additional questions on that. Let's move on to number 7.

Yeah, this— I basically have the same points on this amendment, which I do plan to bring back for the S-1 version. Um, similar to having investigative and subpoena authority, having more access to records will make this commission be able to be more effective than a member of the public. And yeah, this gives a higher level of information, and I, I believe that's possible and important to do given this commission's ability to meet in executive session, given our easily accessible legal tools for confidentiality. Question for Ms. Silvers.

Yeah, um, so this is pretty broad. It says access any public record, including records exempt from public disclosure. Uh, and so I guess, um, is your intention here to allow this commission to access medical files, police investigation files, files that would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial education could reasonably be expected to constitute unwarranted evasion of personal privacy.

Is it your intention that the Commission should be able to get all, all these records?

Client-attorney privilege. I guess I'd want a little more information on the intention on that. Yeah, I believe that in order for this commission to be effective, the broadest access to information possible should be allowed. Um, my understanding is that what's described in 5C in this amendment is essentially what is FOIA-able already and/or able to be retrieved as part of an investigation that we'd run internally anyways. So if we're having— if we're setting up a commission that is internal, giving them full access to the kinds of documents that we on the assembly and other departments in the municipality have seems within, it seems like it would make the Commission more effective.

Dean? Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Gaines. Oh, yeah, sorry. Go ahead if you were responding to something. Thank you.

I just wanted to add relevant to this question. This is sort of a broad grant of access, but it doesn't mean it overrides some very specific protections that are in other laws. For example, HIPAA for medical information, you need a release from the individual, then there is not going to get those unless that individual has signed a release to go to the Commission. Or for example, the attorney-client privileged records, I'm not going to release them. We're going to court, you know, if they try to get those things.

So there are some very specific laws that would still prevent release from certain—. Thank you.

Okay, Ms. Silver, any follow-up? No, thanks. Okay, any other questions from folks? Okay, not seeing any on this one. Um, next we'll move on to number 8.

I will just note, um, this is one we actually— because it was going back to essentially what the original version was, this is represented in the S1 version. So I'll see if the sponsors want to speak to it further. The material difference now is the new version talks about every year versus 6 months.

I'll just see. Okay, okay, we'll move on then. Uh, number 9. So, Ms. Silvers, go ahead.

Yeah, um, so one of the, uh, the purpose of this amendment is to make one of those, um, previous public safety employee seats actually available to a current public safety employee at the rank of Sergeant or Lieutenant or below. And so the purpose of this amendment is to really bring in like the voice from a public safety officer who is working on the street.

And I mean, it— some of the themes here are partnership, building trust, and I just, I kind of don't see I would like to see how you do that when you preclude or, you know, a member, somebody from serving on the Commission that is actually doing the work.

Thanks.

Okay. Any questions on that? Mr. Perez-Rodilla, do you have any questions? OK, not seeing any questions on that one. So then I will turn to our last amendment, and I'll have Mr. Perez-Rodilla describe this one.

This is one that we just finished today, and I think if you want to speak to that one on the Ombudsman's Office. Yeah, so actually, I mentioned this before, this presentation from the Ombudsman's Office at our Rules Committee inspired this. They are a wealth of information about what's happening in the community, and, and I think can bring a lot of value to this Commission. And so spoke with our ombudsman, and he's excited about this relationship and feels like it would be a valuable one, and really, again, equips this Commission with some really, really, really good information without revealing— his intention would be not revealing any confidential financial information, but the information that is public, but, but will give them more tools to be able to understand both what's happening in the community and what's happening in the, in the different public safety departments as a way to, to inform their work. So that's the intention behind this.

Okay, any questions on this one?

Oh yeah, Miss Bomley.

Yeah, is this, um, is this intended to be like a summation of what the ombudsman currently reports at our Rules Committee meetings, or is this intended to be something else?

I think the intention is that— I mean, one of the ideas was that they would on a quarterly basis go to the Commission and give them an update on the work that they're doing that relates to their commission. And so it was not envisioned to be anything connected to the Assembly necessarily, but more so thinking about what high-level data they could collect that would be valuable to the Commission in their work. So I don't know if that helps, but I mean, we heard information about, for instance, the nature of some of the investigations that they're doing and some of the things that they what they have learned at a high level again, and not a specific case, but some of the trends, some of the things that they're seeing, and both from a positive perspective in terms of here's some of the changes and growth and helpful things, and here's some of the concerns that they're seeing, so that that may help this Commission have a sense of what's going on. Yeah, thank you for that. I actually think that this would be really helpful information for the Assembly to receive.

And so I'm wondering if maybe some of the reporting that we get from that office could pivot into more of this kind of, like you were saying, temperature reduction. Thank you. Yeah, and I'll just give one example that I think it might have been 2024. The Ombudsman's Office did an investigation on scofflaw, which is when you, I think, when you repeat offender and the fines escalated and basically recommendations around what more fair penalties would be for that. So that's the kind of investigation that I know has come to the assembly.

Certainly we took— I think we took action on that. I can't remember exactly the resolution of all of that, but that's also something that would be in the purview of public safety because it has to do with penalties in our code, for example.

Okay, any other questions? So I think we've run through our amendments. We've run through our business generally, so I'll just see if there's— it is 1:45, but I'll see if there is any other comments folks would like to make. Mr. Ressner, yeah. Just want one short comment.

There are a number of amendments that establish seats, and I'm welcoming that conversation at the meeting. I would also just say, in our conversations, we debated having seats and the pros and cons of that, and that we made the decision to put as strong intent language as we could into this so that those that are recommended and appointed to this commission, that that intent language of the what, what, who we want to have on this commission is clearly there. So I would just say that, that, that one version is just establish seats, and, and one version is to not establish seats but put intent language.. And so I find that if we begin to create seats, then it may have the ripple effect of now establishing more seats. And so just want to just share that generally, but I look forward to that debate and that conversation at the meeting.

Thanks. And also, Travis, if you can go back one slide, the last thing I'll just share for folks— or wait, maybe we didn't put it in there. Okay, never mind, not that slide, sorry. I thought we had our kind of next step slides in there. Um, so next steps for this, of course, uh, this is AO-202662 and it's two substitute versions.

Um, it is noticed for public hearing on July 21st, continued public hearing. And I will remind members in the public, of course, the rules around continued testimony when there are new versions are anyone who has testified before at any of those prior hearings, um, needs to adhere their comments to the changes in this version, some of which are returning to an earlier version. And so I do intend to keep order on Tuesday and to make sure that we apply those rules consistently across the board. And also, of course, our usual rules of decorum and public hearings. So, and then with that, I think the sponsor's intent would be then to close the public hearing and move into debate and work through these amendments.

So, Mr. Gates.

Oh, thank you. And I just wanted to add that the floor amendments were numbered today. They were numbered from the June 9th meeting, but some of the floor amendment numbers might change for Tuesday. So just be aware, if you're talking about number 7, it might be number 6 Tuesday. We'll see.

Yeah, thank you. So, as always, pay attention to the content. Okay, so there's no further business today. So thank you, everybody, for attending. This work session is adjourned.