The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly is set to hear public testimony on two ordinances during its regular meeting on June 12.
Ordinance 2025-10: Reforming Absentee Voting
This proposed ordinance makes several changes to the borough’s absentee voting process. It would require that absentee ballots be received by the day of the election, rather than up to a week afterward, as is currently allowed.
Because most absentee ballots in the borough are submitted via in-person early voting or through email, the shift in deadline will not meaningfully suppress voter turnout, but will help bolster the integrity of the electoral process by ensuring a more timely and secure vote count.
Additionally, the ordinance would prohibit exclusive vote-by-mail elections, thereby preserving in-person early voting and traditional polling place voting options. Another provision is a requirement that voters not only sign their absentee ballot envelopes but also print their names clearly alongside their signatures. This change would assist election officials in verifying ballots, as some signatures alone can be difficult to decipher.
Ordinance 2025-20-1A: Joy Community Center Funding
This ordinance addresses the fate of the Joy Community Center, which was defunded during the recent borough budget cycle. Funding previously allocated to the center was redirected to the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.
Now, a proposal is on the table to restore funding to keep Joy Community Center open. The building requires repairs and ongoing maintenance, raising concerns about the borough’s financial capacity to sustain it. The Parks and Recreation Department is advocating to keep the facility open, suggesting the department could move its offices from the Big Dipper Ice Arena to Joy. Some are warning that maintaining Joy could divert resources and programs from other borough facilities, including the Fairbanks Senior Center.
The Assembly’s discussion on these ordinances will take place at the Borough Assembly Chambers. These meetings are held at 6 pm in the Mona Lisa Drexler Assembly Chambers, 907 Terminal Street, Fairbanks. Citizens can attend in person, watch live online, or listen to broadcasts on KUAC Radio 89.9 FM. Members of the public can provide input by emailing [email protected], calling 907-459-1401 to sign up for testimony by phone or in person, or appearing at the meeting to testify.
So, IF Joy School (community center) stays open, who are the direct beneficiaries? If you look closely at the user groups involved, I bet you would find that most of them are liberal Democrats who argue “quality of lifestyles” but wouldn’t offer to pay a legitimate user fee back to the FNSB. Democrats are cheap when it comes to paying their own fair share. And, they are always first in line for handouts.
Are you doing the same research to keep the Carlson Center open? It only benefits a few thousand people annually, and the Ice Dogs is a league that should be able to pay for their use of the Center, right? Why are taxpayers paying for a .001% of the population to go watch hockey? Why aren’t voters supporting the Bowling Alley, or the Speedway? Why doesn’t the borough support Ski Land or the Curling club? You’re okay with the borough paying for your political affiliates only? That’s called cronyism, and you’d fit in nicely in Putin’s cabinet with that mentality.
Buzzard, you must be a complete homebody who never leaves your house. The Carlson Center is used extensively for much more than just hockey. It accomodates tens of thousands of paying customers in a year. Joy Community Center gets a few dozen special interest users who don’t muster up enough user fees to pay for the lights during a 24-hour period. Your facts are so mixed-up that I think you might need to go back down to your basement and check your marijuana plants. Get a life, dude. And try getting out of your house.
SO you’re light on facts and therefore went right into personal attacks, right. Yes, the Carlson Center hosts a few homeshows and comic con, sorry I don’t mean to hate on your favorite niche entertainments, but the fact remains that it’s a BOROUGH PROPERTY that’s directly competing with private event spaces like 8 Star, supporting a few special interests, it costs the borough money every single year, it has never once broke even. You can call me a pothead (funny!) all you want but the facts are the facts and you can’t find your way through them when you’re led by the nose. Turn on some Taylor Swift, that’s probably all you understand.
You’re one of these tax and spend Republicans that has no problem with higher taxes because you don’t even own a car.
Tax and spend Republican? That’s a new one for the books. Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black.
The borough voted to defund Joy Community Center, and gave the money to the school district. Now they want to reopen Joy with an additional appropriation. We are already spending over the cap. There is recreational space in the school districts, if they won’t make it available, then the assembly should reappropriate the money from the school district for Joy.
However, Joy has significant deferred maintenance. The borough is already spending $10 million over the cap. The borough should either spin it off to a nonprofit, or sell it to a private concern
It could sit empty for years in this economy, and the borough will still have to pay to heat it