A top City of Fairbanks official says he wants to stall certain public records requests submitted by Outside YouTubers.
Chief of Staff Mike Sanders told the City Council at a Tuesday work session that requests for Fairbanks Police Department body-cam footage from content creators are gumming up the system. He said he thinks the city "should just fight it."
“By telling these YouTubers, like, ‘You’ll get it when you get it,’” he said. “If we’re late a few times, what’s the worst they’re going to do? We go to court and then the judge tells us we have to give them their stuff? Sure, then we’ll give them their stuff.”
Sanders acknowledged that the city attorney’s office doesn’t agree with that method. But he said the time-consuming process of redacting the audio and video gets in the way of the police department’s evidence technician performing other essential job duties.
“Instead, he’s basically just subsidizing YouTubers from the Lower 48,” he said.
Monthly data provided by the city clerk’s office spanning May 2023 to July 2026 show requests for Fairbanks police audio and video peaked this year, surpassing 35 in both April and July. Prior to October 2025, those kinds of requests hadn’t exceeded 20 in any single month during that period.
Fairbanks Police Chief Ron Dupee said content creators take advantage of state law that makes receiving public records free as long as providing them doesn’t require more than five hours of staff time in a calendar month. He said that’s one part of the problem.
“And number two, we just don’t have the personnel to keep up with the requests. At the end of the day, that’s the biggest issue,” he said.
Sanders told the council that they’d enlisted artificial intelligence in hopes of speeding up the process, but that it’s still too slow.
The topic isn’t entirely new. The city backed a bill, HB 377, in the state Legislature this year to change the Alaska Public Records Act. It was proposed by Fairbanks Democratic Rep. Ashley Carrick but never reached the House floor.
Supporters, which included the Alaska Municipal League, said the bill would unburden local governments by removing the five-hour free rule. Another provision in the draft sought to improve transparency for victims in use-of-force incidents by releasing body cam footage to them or their families within 30 days, unless a law enforcement agency seeks an extension.
But the bill got some pushback, including from Anchorage-based attorney John McKay, who practices media law. He said at an April 21 House State Affairs Committee hearing that the legislation wasn’t fully baked and could severely impede people’s access to their government.
“The changes that would be implemented through this bill would be the most harmful to the public generally and to the news organizations and others that serve the public interest more than any changes to the (Alaska) Public Records Act since statehood,” he said.
The Fairbanks City Council named revisions to the state public records law as one of its legislative priorities last year, and council members signaled Tuesday that they intend to do so again this year.
“I think I’m ready to start going out on the campaign deal and tell every candidate that wants to run for the Legislature, ‘Are you going to back us on this or not? Every city in the state is going to have the same problem. So, are you going to fix it or just put it off and make us live with it?’” said Councilmember John Ringstad.