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Assembly Rules Committee clarifies how to request work sessions and begins updating the assembly work plan
Summary
The Anchorage Assembly Rules Committee on June 12 debated a tentative two-step process for scheduling work sessions — routing requests through the clerk, tentatively placing items on the calendar, and using a confirmation checklist to identify presenters — and then conducted a line-by-line review of the assembly work plan with members signing onto project lines.
The Anchorage Assembly Rules Committee on June 12 debated how to make member-requested work sessions reliable and useful, and then moved into a broad, member-by-member review of the Assembly's multi-topic work plan.
Committee members described recurring problems: work sessions were sometimes scheduled without a clear presenter or sponsor and have occasionally proceeded with no prepared material. The chair and clerk proposed a two-step scheduling approach: a tentative scheduling based on calendar availability followed by a confirmation checklist to the requester that specifies who will deliver content, what questions should be answered and whether the sponsor or department will present.
"One of the elements that we've discussed adding to the process is a tentative scheduling with a follow-up checklist of some kind to the requester of the work session," the chair said, outlining the proposal. Committee members and staff agreed that the Municipal Clerk's Office should be the central point of contact for scheduling. The clerk confirmed requests should go to the clerk and that the clerk would coordinate with the committee chair and the calendar.
Legal counsel and members raised Open Meetings Act concerns about members discussing issues in small groups. Legislative counsel Matthew Hirt advised that: as long as questions and answers are brokered through the clerk and posted publicly so all members have access, the clerk can reduce serial-meeting risk. He also noted that when fewer than three members are involved individually, direct contact is permissible but warned sponsors and staff to avoid informal serial contacts.
Committee members explored several operational clarifications: work sessions generally are for information gathering (no formal public testimony at the end), confirmation hearings are required by code to be work sessions, committees allow more formal deliberation and public comment, and there are both formal and informal referrals to committees. The committee discussed specific examples, including an item on the criminalization of camping and how it could be scheduled with the Housing and Homelessness Committee.
After the scheduling conversation, legislative services led a line-by-line review of the Assembly's work plan. Because four new assembly members were not previously listed on the plan, members were invited to add or remove themselves from project lines. The review covered housing-related items (reuse of buildings, mobile/manufactured dwelling-unit code changes), public-safety projects, civic engagement, economic-development items such as bed-tax reimagining and a proposed short-term rental tax to fund municipal housing, and infrastructure items (stormwater utility, Terminal 1 construction monitoring). Members added themselves to many lines and noted administration contacts for coordination.
No formal procedural rule changes were adopted at the meeting; the committee agreed to implement the tentative scheduling/checklist pilot administratively, route work-session requests through the clerk, and continue the work-plan review in future meetings to complete item updates.
Committee members repeatedly emphasized that sponsors should be identified and prepared to present or else the assembly risks convening unproductive sessions. The clerk will be the scheduling point of contact and will confirm sponsors and presenters before a work session is finalized.
