The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly passed an ordinance Thursday that gives the board of ethics power to dismiss ethics complaints it deems frivolous.
The vote props up a legislative bookend to a saga that’s lasted over a year.
It comes in the wake of two separate, minor ethics code violations the assembly has adjudicated since 2024. They involved current Assemblymember Barbara Haney and former Assemblymember Savannah Fletcher, who ended up with censures and fines of $1 and $3, respectively. The new ordinance also follows a previous attempt to amend the ethics code that failed in December.
In addition to allowing the ethics board to toss trivial complaints, the new measure amends the provision at the center of both the Haney and Fletcher infractions.
Formerly, assembly members and other borough public officials were required to say they were expressing an opinion when giving a public statement, unless authorized to speak on behalf of the assembly. The ethics board found Haney didn’t fulfill that requirement in a letter to the editor to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner; for Fletcher, the ethics finding related to a series of paid radio spots.
Now, public officials giving public statements don’t have to make that disclosure but must not falsely represent their opinion as being the position of the assembly.
Assemblymember Scott Crass sponsored the measure. And he told KUAC after the vote that he thinks its approval will close this chapter for the assembly.
“I think this will enable the board of ethics to deal with de minimis complaints efficiently, and I don’t think we’ll hear a lot of anything. Hopefully we’re all very ethical elected people here,” he said.
In late July, the assembly decided to postpone their vote on this ordinance. The delay was at the request of Haney, who is appealing her ethics violation in Fairbanks Superior Court. When the ordinance came up for public hearing last month, she was preparing for oral arguments in her case, which have now happened.
But the judge still hasn’t ruled in the matter, and she said she wanted to see Crass’s ordinance sent to the board of ethics for their input while her appeal continues working its way through the court. But her motion to refer the measure to the ethics board failed to pass in a 3-5 vote.
“It should’ve been referred to the ethics committee for them to wordsmith it and look it over,” she said in a brief interview Thursday. “Now they are going to be stuck with something that they have no input on, and I think that’s unfortunate.”
Haney said that seems like a double standard since the assembly sent the prior ordinance to the board for their feedback. Crass said during the meeting that the former measure would have added to the board’s workload, while this iteration implements changes they’d asked for.
The new ordinance ultimately passed on a 5-3 vote. The split was the same in both the failed motion to refer to the board of ethics and in the final vote to approve the ordinance. Assemblymembers Crass, David Guttenberg, Mindy O’Neall, Kristan Kelly and Nick LaJiness were in the majority; Assemblymembers Haney, Tammie Wilson and Brett Rotermund were in the minority. Assemblymember Liz Reeves-Ramos was absent.
Haney originally voted yes on passing the final ordinance, but changed that to a no with a protest after other members cast their votes.