HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-16-25 Public Comment - N. Nakamura - Community Councils in AnchorageFrom:Natsuki Nakamura
To:Bozeman Public Comment; Bozeman Goverment Study Commission; Douglas Fischer
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Community Councils in Anchorage
Date:Wednesday, July 16, 2025 7:27:40 PM
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Hello, thank you for the interesting discussion at the joint INC/Study Commission meeting last
week.Below is my public comment about how the neighborhood associations in Anchorage are set
up (they call them Community Councils there), with some additional thoughts and citationsadded.
Please share with the members of INC and with the Study Commission.
Thank you!
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Anchorage has nearly 300,000 people and of course their own challenges, so take this with agrain of salt, but here are some of the things that stood out to me in my time living in
Anchorage, before moving to Bozeman.
For context, Anchorage has 37 Community Councils. The Anchorage governing body(Assembly) consists of 6 wards with 2 representatives each (Anchorage includes a huge
geographical area), plus they have an executive mayor.
Everyone living in Anchorage has a Community Council. People are also allowed to
participate in the Community Council of their place of work or where they ownproperty, so could potentially be involved in multiple Community Councils. (I have
mixed feelings whether someone who works or owns property in a neighborhood shouldalways have the same weight as someone who lives in that neighborhood, but the
different perspectives are always helpful, and being able to be participate in multiplecouncils allows more opportunities to provide input in your city).
According to Anchorage's City charter, Community Councils were established to,"afford citizens an opportunity for maximum community involvement and self-
determination."Anchorage has a Federation of Community Councils (FCC) that has dedicated staff who
can support the administrative pieces of the community councils including websites foreach Community Council, advertising meeting times, template by-laws, weekly
newsletters, and contact info for each of the councils. Similar to INC, the communitycouncils have a monthly meeting with representatives from each community.
The FCC provides trainings to help residents understand local government and how tofacilitate meetings.
FCC recently started facilitating "Local Lens" presentations with opportunities for Q&Ato provide a deeper dive into local Issues to help residents get more involved. Recent
Local Lens topics included "Residential Design Standards" and "NeighborhoodResilience."
I think the fact that every person and neighborhood has a Community Council isimportant for representation and also puts more responsibility on the City to ensure
there is enough structure and engagement to keep each Council active. Every 10 years the City reviews the geographic boundaries of the Community Council
districts and seeks input as to whether any boundaries between neighborhoodcommunity council districts should be adjusted.
Community Councils receive and review notices from the City including: alcohol andmarijuana licenses, nightclub proposals, and other major land use proposals.
Each Community Council submits to the City Assembly their community's annualpriority list of capital improvement projects. Community Councils are a good avenue for
communicating traffic concerns in their neighborhood to be addressed by the city.Lastly, the Community Council meetings that I attended had standing items on their
agendas, including updates from their city ward representatives, school board, and statereps. Because of this expectation, elected officials made an effort to join these meetings,
at least via zoom and at least for enough of the meeting to be able to give any relevantupdates and take some questions from neighbors. If elected officials weren't able to
make i themselves, they would usually send a member of their staff to give updates andtake back questions. Anchorage is a pretty big city, but having this access to elected
officials definitely makes it feel like a smaller town.
In conclusion, I strongly believe INC is important for neighborhood and resident engagement.
I hope the City can incorporate some of the ideas that came up during the discussion in order(either through the study commission or sooner for things that don't need to go through a
change in the charter) to increase communication and empower resident engagement.
Thank you,Natsuki Nakamura