Public Safety Advisory Commission Meeting - Nov 14, 2025
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Public Safety Advisory Commission Meeting - Nov 14, 2025
On November 14, 2025, a facilitated discussion was held to assess the collective perspective on creating a reimagined public safety commission. The meeting was explicitly framed as a consensus-building exercise to ground the group in facts, reflect on emotional responses, and interpret the meaning of the data gathered, rather than making final policy decisions. Facilitator D'Anna Daniels emphasized that while alignment would be sought, final recommendations would be presented to policymakers for approval.
Consent Calendar
- No formal consent calendar items were processed; the session was dedicated to facilitated dialogue and the ORID (Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, Decisional) process.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Speaker Position: The Alaska Civil and Human Rights Coalition expressed strong support for an independent body that is separate from the police department and municipality, emphasizing the need for statutory stability to prevent political disbanding.
- Speaker Position: A police department employee (ESA) expressed concern that focusing solely on policing limits the scope; they emphasized that public safety is holistic. They argued that officers are community members and stakeholders who face their own systemic challenges, such as responding to mental health calls without adequate training.
- Speaker Position: A military veteran and mother of a black son expressed that the community does not feel safe and that the current system fails to address survival needs like homelessness and food security. They argued that true safety requires separating law enforcement from outreach and addressing trauma cycles.
- Speaker Position: A representative noted that while many stakeholders support the concept of a commission, there is significant skepticism regarding whether the body will have genuine authority or if it will be advisory without power to shape policy.
- Speaker Position: A speaker highlighted the necessity of compensation for volunteers to ensure true community representation, noting that unpaid participation excludes working-class voices.
- Speaker Position: A speaker expressed frustration with the shortened timeline, questioning the adequacy of only one remaining meeting to reach consensus given the complexity of the issues.
- Speaker Position: A speaker emphasized that trust must be built through transparency and that the commission must have the authority to review incidents after the fact, not just advise on policy.
Discussion Items
- Nature of Authority: Participants debated whether the commission must be legally independent (enshrined in the municipal charter) versus merely advisory. A consensus emerged that a purely advisory role may lack the necessary "teeth" to effect change, while a fully separate body might lack official capacity. The enabling ordinance was identified as the critical mechanism to define duties and independence.
- Scope of Public Safety: The group discussed redefining public safety beyond policing to include homelessness, road safety, mental health, and healthcare. A speaker noted that officers are currently responding to calls outside their training, indicating a mismatch in resources.
- Representation and Compensation: It was noted that the current meeting attendees do not fully represent the most marginalized voices (e.g., those experiencing homelessness). Participants argued that compensation is necessary to ensure diverse participation and that specific representation quotas or constraints may need to be codified.
- Trust and Humanity: Speakers collectively expressed that the core driver for this commission is the lack of trust between the community and law enforcement. There was an emotional appeal to recognize the humanity of both residents and officers, and to acknowledge that the current system often fails to treat residents as people.
- Funding and Logistics: A speaker raised concerns about the fiscal notes, warning that creating a new independent body is expensive and must be weighed against a flat municipal budget. The need for a sustainable funding source was identified as a key factual constraint.
Key Outcomes
- Status of Decisions: The group explicitly agreed that no final decisions on the commission's structure, charter status, or authority would be made during this session. The outcome is a set of themes and clarifications to inform draft high-level recommendations.
- Next Steps: The facilitation team will synthesize the discussions, sticky notes, and previous submissions to draft high-level recommendations to be presented at the final meeting or to the City Assembly.
- Live Poll Result: A live poll was conducted to gauge support for a public safety advisory commission; the aggregate response showed a majority of the room strongly supporting the establishment of such a body.
- Identified Themes: Key themes for the next phase include the need for an independent but integrated body, the necessity of a robust enabling ordinance, the importance of holistic public safety, and the critical role of trust, transparency, and compensation.
- Discrepancy Note: A participant noted that the official proposal submitted by the Alaska Coalition for Justice was not discussed in detail, which they felt was a missed opportunity, though the facilitator acknowledged the proposal is part of the background data.
Meeting Transcript
And we have such a short amount of time together. How's this sound? Or we're on. Are we good? It sounds good to me, but I don't want to get in too far if we're not ready. Is this sound good? Okay. Well welcome everyone. My name is D'Anale, and there are a lot of familiar faces here, but some of you that I haven't met. My team at Denali Daniels and Associates, Matt Isabella here, Ms. Wellness Connecticut and Edward. Well, we hold a space for you today. So we're really happy to see all your faces in person and thankful to have the opportunity to have some space for an in-person dialogue since we've had some online activity with this. It's never the same, right? I hope we can agree. Today is really just about grounding in where we're at. We won't be getting decisional, but we will start to shape and take the temperature of where everyone is at in terms of a potential public safety advisory commission. So we've got an agenda that will pretty much follow a process that we've used with other groups that have differences of opinion, and the process will sort of find those places where we have alignment and then start to get clear on where we don't have alignment, so we can start charging a path over on that. We only have two meetings. We've got today and next Thursday, and so we'll have to have some agreement when we're done this time next Thursday and then so um but before we dive in, um I actually have a personal story that I think makes a lot of sense for this group. Um so I've been um doing this work for um about I mean it might be more like 14 years at this point, but um in 2013, one of my first clients was actually a group of massage therapists, and so while you're wondering why I would start talking about massage therapists in public safety meeting, it really doesn't have anything to do with the topic, um, but the process is the same. So for them, they really wanted to have a state board that represented their industry, and they had some very personal and real reasons why that was important to them. One being that in Alaska at the time, because their profession was not recognized, they were unable to build insurance. So many of them were actually working under chiropractors. And so we got in a room together and started talking about what this would look like if they had a board and we have to pass the legislation, there were all of these steps that they needed to take. But what became very clear was that there were a lot of um differences of opinion, and it was easy for it to get tense. And this is this is their livelihood. And there were questions about authority and oversight, and cost. There were folks that really wanted high standards, and then there were others that were really concerned that maybe this was going to be a room for them in the likelihood. Um so in the end, they were able to find a proposal that they could all live with, but more importantly, one that could also get across the finish line and pass the legislature. And it did. It passed both bodies almost unanimously with one no vote, which was then Senator Mike Belly, which is a tale for another time. Um in any event, I again I don't share this story because there's um alignment between the topics of massage therapy and the topics of public safety. I share it because I feel like there is a lot of parallel with the process. So we're gonna approach our time together today. My hope is that we can really ground ourselves in what are what are the decisions that we can make about that process and this new commission so that we can tackle those public safety issues in a way that is more long-term and sustainable. So hopefully that uh grinds us in our process today. So before we dive in too much deeper, um I'd like to go ahead and uh do some quick introductions. And um we've got a nice, we've got a lot of cool chairs here, so there's a microphone coming around. ourselves in what are what are the decisions that we can make about the process and this new commission so that we can tackle those public safety issues in a way that is more long-term and sustainable so hopefully that uh gruns us in our process today so before we dive in too much deeper um I'd like to go ahead and uh do some quick introductions and um we've got a nice we've got a lot of cool chairs here so there's a microphone coming around um since we're a little short on time we're just gonna have you um share your name and if you're with an organization share that too and if we're not um that's totally fine so let's just hear who's in the room and say hello is Jeff Child thank you president Hi Yara Silver's a dissembly East English other my help by deputy on what we as well associate on that Cheryl Cox Williams president and AAC and member of Carol has been for the municipality and a brawley on the assembly representing the West side and I'll also say the third member in our project uh can represent for the also West side is out of state so we can't participate but you will move next week everyone's representing that on behalf of Alaska Black Office and the Alaska Corish and for coalitions Randy Breger with a week Aaron Jackson Hill was in the last coalition for justice and only talk with Navy and Alaska Coalition for Justice. I could work in Katie Baldwin Johnson the Alaska trusted work speaking pleasure police department employees association department via speaker ESA resident and share first thank you thanks as well so let's talk about our agenda and let's dive right in some so first up I'm gonna just cover some grand rules and I actually wanted to be very intentional and got pretty excited about grands and just I was excited to go to book checks so I'm gonna go over them relatively quickly um they're um you know they're trumined and so they're kind of important um but I'm not gonna take a deep dive on all of them okay um so we have um we focus on the task and I already talked a little bit about that right we're not going to solve public safety issues in this room today but hopefully we'll create a path forward process for doing that um multiple truths can exist at once speak from your own experiences and honor others' experiences disagreement is allowed um but disrespect is not so we will not be disrespectful of this no one is required to share more than they want to um and I I hope that if you have a packet um that there are sticky notes in your packet if there's anyone that doesn't feel comfortable talking on a microphone um you've got sticky notes and just kind of jot your thoughts down and hold them up and one of my team members will come get them and we'll make sure that folks hear what you have to add to the conversation and we're mindful of power differences in the room and we practice generous listening so that's sort of active listening listen to actually hear what's being said not to implement what you're going to say next we focus on ideas not on individuals so this is a group process I think this might step up a step back so if you're someone that you know that you like to talk maybe emphasize listening today and if you're someone that typically doesn't say as much maybe you want to add something that you wouldn't otherwise add. So find yourself in that role today and we assume good intent from everyone and intend to add about and confidentiality so what's said in this room it is being recorded but to the extent that we have good intentions about sharing that with this person's stories that's my request um and I also want to add we've got in the packets the submissions that were um provided online to help inform this process um we haven't included names in those and that was intentional so to the extent we can in a public process which I also think is part of conversation today um we want to respect that confidentiality and just respect personal stories but what leads the room is discussion about process and policy and high level recommendations that we all are good um and then last but not least and we're gonna say solution oriented so ground host today are drive hosts yes So to the extent we can in a public process, which I also think is part of a conversation today. So what leads the room is discussion about process and policy and high-level recommendations that we all are on. Oh, you should. And then last but not least, and we're gonna say solution or ground those today are the drive house. Yes. That's the only question. All right, well, Donnelly, what are we doing today with our time? Um we're gonna use what's called an ORID.
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