The Fairbanks City Council killed an ordinance Monday that would have established reading a short land acknowledgement as part of each regular meeting.
The statement would have recognized Interior Alaska as traditional lands of the Dena people and honored their past, present and future generations; it would also have noted that Alaska Natives traditionally gathered in the region to harvest food.
Monday’s vote marks the second time in about three years that a Fairbanks City Council has opted not to make the acknowledgement part of their routine recitations.
The measure was rehashed from a failed 2022 resolution that former Councilmember Shoshana Kun crafted in collaboration with Denakkanaaga. That’s the nonprofit organization that aims to serve as a voice for Native Elders in Interior Alaska.
Sharon McConnell is the executive director of Denakkanaaga, and she said the proposed language performs a couple different social and cultural functions.
“The Native people were here long, long, long ago, and this acknowledgement is just reaffirming that they were here, that they were the stewards of this land,” she said. “And acknowledgements also are intended to create awareness of the rich Native history that we have in our city.”
The City of Fairbanks incorporated in 1903. Artifacts found where the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus now sits show evidence of humans dating back approximately 3,500 years, and many place names in the area, like “Chena,” derive from the Lower Tanana Athabascan language.
Councilmembers Valerie Therrien and Crystal Tidwell introduced the ordinance Monday reviving the effort to cement the Alaska Native land acknowledgement at council meetings.
Therrien, who also cosponsored the resolution three years ago, urged the council to allow the small tweak to city code to progress.
“I don’t think that everybody that wanted to talk about this ordinance understood that we may or may not advance it tonight,” she said.
Therrien was referring to the fact that the measure was on the council’s consent agenda Monday, meaning it was set to advance to a second reading and public hearing at their next meeting. That later phase of an ordinance’s life cycle is typically when the council listens to the bulk of public testimony, discusses the legislation and then takes a final vote.
But Councilmember Lonny Marney pulled the land acknowledgment measure from the consent agenda, paving the way for immediate debate followed by a vote on whether to stop it from advancing to the public hearing.
In opposition to the ordinance, Marney said it could distract from other city business. That was after he read a psalm.
“The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. The world and all who live in it, for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters,” he read.
“So that, basically, I would think would be the land acknowledgement that all of us should believe in, for one. It’s from the bible,” Marney said.
After the 2022 resolution failed, the council decided to instead display a land acknowledgement outside their chambers among other historical documents.
At the time, mandating that the language be read at meetings didn’t gain support from council members who argued people could voluntarily recite the statement, but that requiring it signaled a sort of favoritism, according to meeting minutes.
In that sense, legislative history repeated itself Monday.
“We’re trying to pick groups and say, ‘Yes, we think you’re great,’” said Councilmember John Ringstad. “I don’t think that’s our job. I think our job is to treat everybody the same.”
But that’s not how Native leaders see the matter. Steve Ginnis is the former Fairbanks Native Association executive director and Tanana Chiefs Conference president, and he said the ordinance isn’t about playing politics – it’s just about acknowledging history.
“I fail to understand what the issue is here,” he said. “If somebody can tell me what they think is the issue here, I’d like to know it because I don’t understand it. I don’t get it.”
The council’s rejection of the ordinance comes amid other sensitive developments in the relationship between the city and its Alaska Native community.
The decades-long Fairbanks Four case, in which four Indigenous men spent years in prison before suing the city over civil rights violations, recently concluded with settlements that did not require the city to admit fault or issue apologies to the men.
And Fairbanks Mayor David Pruhs drew criticism in April after one of his social media posts seemed to imply a connection between Alaska Natives and vandalism downtown. He later apologized to the community and pledged to form a group to talk about racism and other issues.
The six-person council initially tied 3-3 Monday. Councilmembers Therrien, Tidwell and Sue Sprinkle voted in favor of advancing the ordinance to public hearing; councilmembers Marney, Ringstad and Jerry Cleworth were opposed.
Pruhs broke the tie by voting with the latter group to prevent the measure from moving forward.