Task Force to Reimagine Anchorage Public Safety Advisory Commission Holds First Panel Session on Sept. 25, 2025
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Task Force to Reimagine Anchorage Public Safety Advisory Commission Holds First Panel Session on Sept. 25, 2025
The Task Force to Reimagine the Public Safety Advisory Commission held its first of four information sessions on September 25, 2025, from approximately 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM. The meeting featured a panel of municipal leaders who discussed the current public safety system in Anchorage, how community voices are currently heard, and how a new commission could improve communication, collaboration, and trust. Facilitated by Denali Daniels and Associates, the session included structured panel questions followed by an open Q&A with the public and task force members.
Current Public Safety Roles and Community Engagement
Cameron Perez-Ferdia (Assembly Chair, Public Health & Safety Committee): Described the Assembly's role as developing policy and allocating funds. Stated that current community input channels are limited by speaking time and scope, creating a gap in communication, collaboration, and trust between the Assembly and the public.
Chief Sean Case (Anchorage Police Department): Outlined APD's role as providing law enforcement and crossover services in public health and crisis navigation. Identified existing engagement through community councils, the APD Community Task Force, and an open-door policy. Identified gaps due to Anchorage's geographic diversity and the fear some residents have of formal, recorded public forums.
Chief Douglas Straggy (Anchorage Fire Department): Described AFD's mission as serving the community before, during, and after emergencies, including medical response, dispatch, and the Safety Patrol. Reported receiving feedback through community councils, social media, and patient satisfaction surveys. Acknowledged that current feedback mechanisms rely on self-selection and miss large segments of the community.
Director Kimberly Rash (Anchorage Health Department): Described the Health Department's role in addressing root causes of harm through public health, mobile clinics, and licensing. Cited gaps where demand for healthcare outpaces provider availability and a lack of access to translation services.
Thea Agnew Benben (Special Assistant to Mayor Lafrance, Crisis Response Expert): Shared that the municipality is implementing the 'Crisis Now' model, focusing on someone to call, someone to respond, and a place to go. Stated that current public testimony formats are largely one-way and limited, contrasting this with the more open format of the Housing and Homelessness (HAND) Commission.
Panelist Vision for a Future Commission
Perez-Ferdia: Suggested a new commission could serve as a hub for community voices, conduct regular listening sessions, oversee a public safety dashboard, pilot projects, and provide policy recommendations and oversight.
Chief Case: Emphasized the role of education to help the public understand the full scope of police work. Stated that a commission could facilitate collaboration on policies like use of force and create a safe, two-way avenue for feedback and accountability.
Chief Straggy: Wanted the commission to ensure broad community representation and to be familiar with departmental performance data to provide data-informed advocacy to the mayor and assembly.
Director Rash: Expressed that the commission could serve as a stronger advocacy partner for upstream solutions, housing, and healthcare, connecting individuals through a community health worker model.
Benben: Hoped the commission could provide a forum for a shared, factual understanding of community safety data, allowing residents and the municipality to correctly identify problems and develop solutions together.
Public Comments and Testimony
Trust and Civilian Oversight:
- A task force member (Mercedes): Challenged panelists on building trust, stating civilians feel trust is broken. Posited that agencies ask for trust while dismissing oversight, and described experiencing officer attitudes that she found frightening.
- Chief Case: Replied that trust is a two-way street. He stated the department has dramatically increased transparency (use-of-force dashboard, critical incident info). He acknowledged historical cultural hurdles in law enforcement, specifically around race and ethnicity, and cited an internal training on boarding schools that shifted officers' perspectives. He stated it is 'not a valid answer... to say you got to be patient with us.'
- Taffy Tolia Fua: Stated the core struggle is identifying where power lies in a commission, warning against creating a body whose recommendations lack implementation authority or funding.
- Thea Agnew Benben: Agreed with Tolia Fua, stating a commission needs staffing and a connection to a department that can act on its recommendations to build trust through visible results.
Education and Cultural Understanding (Alaska Native/BIPOC Communities):
- Terry Light (Trusted Connections): Asked how education can be facilitated both ways and who teaches cultural understanding for Alaska Natives.
- Felix: Asked how to overcome professional roadblocks where community members are told they are not police officers, so they cannot understand.
- Thea: Responded that the municipality needs stronger connections with regional tribal organizations and home villages to help people who are stranded or in crisis.
- Amanda (Native Movement): Suggested the commission could oversee transparency around how investigations into police incidents are triggered and who decides if a third party is involved.
- Don Morse: Proposed bringing together Alaska Native people experiencing policing with current APD personnel. Chief Case responded 'Absolutely 100% will participate.'
Reentry, Homelessness, and Public Safety:
- Christina Scherr (Anchorage Reentry Coalition): Described that over 60% of those incarcerated have substance or mental health issues but less than 12% receive treatment. Asked Chief Case if there has been an uptick in arrests for homelessness and how community partners can best support the police.
- Chief Case: Replied that arrests for homelessness-related issues are in the 'low single digits.' He noted efforts by the Hope Team and mobile intervention teams focus on connecting to services. Reflecting on a past pre-arrest diversion pilot, he stated the community lacked the behavioral health infrastructure, but now some infrastructure is in place.
Representation:
- Anna Brawley: Posed a question about what good representation looks like, asking panelists and attendees to consider what perspectives and communities should be included, not specific people or organizations.
Key Outcomes and Next Steps
- This was the first of four scheduled meetings aimed at developing recommendations for the new commission.
- The next information session will take place on October 16, 2025, focusing on the mechanics and structure of the commission.
- Two in-person deliberation sessions will be held on November 13 and 20, 2025 (10:30 AM to 12:00 PM). Community members who attended or viewed at least one information session can vote on recommendations.
- A feedback form will be released after the second information session for public input.
- Recordings of the sessions will be posted online for public access.
Meeting Transcript
I'm seeing the panelists, that's great. Wonderful. Okay. Well, I'm I'm gonna get us started. So I believe I see the recording going. Do I have that right? Yes. Okay, let's do it. Um, well, good morning, everyone. Uh welcome to the task force to reimagine the public safety advisory commission for Anchorage. My name is Denaly, and my team at Denali Daniels and Associates is providing facilitation support to the task force, and we're really excited to be kicking off a series of information sessions to help inform the task force as it considers what a future public safety advisory commission for Anchorage might look like. So today's session includes a panel of key leaders in Anchorage who have expertise that makes up the public safety system for our city. And so we're pretty excited about our meeting today. And I'll talk in just a moment about the overall process before we get into the panel. Um, but just a few um housekeeping items before we dive in. Um welcome uh members of the public and members of the task force and our speakers. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, in the interest of getting straight to the session, um, we're gonna skip official introductions. Um, and also just want to remind everyone today's meeting is being recorded, and that recording will be posted on the project um web page. Um so it is a public session, and it is a public meeting that will be um posted uh for the public to see. So please keep your devices on mute unless you're speaking to avoid background noise. Um, our program includes two rounds of questions from our speakers that I'm gonna move us through because we've dedicated some pretty a good chunk of time uh toward the end for a robust QA session. So we're gonna let the two rounds of questions happen first before we open it up. But we do have um, if we're if we can stay on schedule, we'll have plenty of time for an open dialogue at the end. But we will have a little bit of structure with today. So that is part of our format today. Um then just a word about the chat function. Um, unless you're having technical is issues, we ask that you not use the chat function. Anything that gets entered in the chat needs to be read into the record. So that's not something that we're using as part of our format today. Um, so with that, I just have a few slides um that I want to um share just to ground us in the process. And I think um Jasmine is gonna be pulling that open, so I'll just give you wonderful. Thank you. Great. Okay, so um maybe just jump on into the next slide and um to ground everyone in why we're here. Um, the task force was established um last spring uh to develop recommendations on a new public safety advisory commission in Anchorage, and during the summer, the task force held a discovery phase, and during discovery, a kickoff meeting was held back in June. Many of you were there. It was a hybrid format, and in that meeting, we heard some pretty important feedback that we have been taking very seriously. Um feedback about creating more of an open format, um, considering when we meet and the scope and definition of what public safety means to people in Anchorage as a necessary step to accomplish the charge of the task force. Um, based on that feedback, the task force created a feedback form, and that resulted in, I believe, over 70 submissions and also hosted a community workshop in August, and that allowed community members to share what public safety means to them in Anchorage. And after all of this, an information paper was written, and it's pretty robust, and it provides some background on the previous commission and some of the history, and kind of grounds us in what we heard during the discovery phase and provides a framework for developing recommendations this fall and how this is all going to work. So let's go to the next slide. Today is the first of four meetings. It's a series, and before we know it, this process is going to be over. So we have a lot of work to do. Today we want to continue to define what our public safety system means to us in Anchorage and specifically focus on how people in Anchorage can currently engage. So before we talk about where we're going, let's talk about where we are today. And so after today's discussion, our hope is that we have a shared understanding about how current agencies and organizations and initiatives, the key ones that are currently providing a forum for public voices to be heard on public safety issues, that we're really we have a shared understanding of what's happening and how voices are currently being heard. And then I think that's going to give us what we need to start pivoting into where the gaps and what opportunities are there for the future. We have a session in October that's going to start really focusing us on the mechanics.
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