Julie Kitka, who has served as president of Alaska Federation of Natives for 33 years, is retiring, the board announced on Friday.
The board of directors of the highly political Alaska Native organization has developed a succession and search committee “and will be casting a wide net to seek diverse candidates with strong commitments to serving the Alaska Native community”
The position will be announced and open for application in March, with the new president in place by the time the 2024 AFN convention convenes Oct. 17-19 at the Dena’ina Civic & Convention Center in Anchorage.
AFN was started in 1966 to address Alaska Native land rights, and was formally incorporated in 1967. Over the past few years it has become stridently leftist and anti-development, to the point where some Alaska Native corporations, such as Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, Doyon, and Aleut Corporation withdrew from the organization. Tlingit and Haida Tribal Central Council and Tanana Chiefs Conference, which represents 39 Alaska Native villages and 37 federally recognized tribes in the Interior, also left in 2023. The village of Barrow also withdrew.
Kitka was born in Cordova to a father of Eskimo and Chugach lineage and a mother who was of German descent. After graduating from Alaska Pacific University, she started as a bookkeeper at AFN, and rose to become its president within eight years; she is the longest-serving president in the organization’s history.
During her time as president, the storied organization has drifted into national missions, such as support for Black Lives Matter, in spite of unlawful and violent riots during 2020 in the lead-up to the elections. Kitka called for the resignation of President Donald Trump after some of his supporters made a surge into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The organization endorsed then-Sen. Mark Begich in 2014 for Senate, rather than his Republican challenger Dan Sullivan, and Democrat Mary Peltola for Congress during 2022’s election cycle. It also endorsed Sen. Lisa Murkowski over Kelly Tshibaka that year.
In 2023, the organization approved a resolution supporting the new ranked-choice voting and open primary system now implemented in Alaska elections, which is also supported by liberal entities.
Thank you for the review of recent causes the AFN has supported. It’s telling how little the organization cares about its own people but cares about wielding its influence over who to vote for and not vote for in their Alaskan Native circle. 33 years? An interesting fact would be pay from her start to her retirement. All good reminders though.
2023 $335000.00 compensation.
AFN and the PFD are joined at the hip.
October, PFD, AK Airlines trade 5 round trip tickets for a PFD, Villages emptied out, AFN , Anchorage Economy Boomed, year after year
Now since Walker and Kitka taking us on the great socialist gravy train of biggest government..
No one can even buy a ticket from the village to Anchorage with a PFD. Kitka turned full blown Dimwit and bowed to the greenie weannies, turned last years AFN into a campaign event for Mary Peltola. All organized by Mary’s former husband and her cousin in law Anna Hoffman…. hardly anyone that had to buy a ticket from their own pocket, attended from the villages…
If it wasn’t for the evenings of Dance and the Craft Sales, AFN would just be another leftist cesspool…
Thank you for exposing some of the family ties. People don’t know that Mary, Bethel Hoffmans, Murcowski and some others all are buddies, have a long history and work together behind the scenes in this take down of Alaska that also has a long history! Sad how money has corrupted so many Alaskan Natives!
I do enjoy and support the craft sales.
If anything is to survive considering the declined state of USofA states and organizations as AFN and tribes Must get out from all government support they received in the past. Those days states could grow itself cause the federal government could help cover their cost are gone. The more big government leaders or employees bailing out the more convinced I sense I am correct “something big is coming and most US citizens are unprepared”. So best thing a citizen or organization could do is Ween themselves off as much government aid before they dreadful day. So there is the resilience one has developed to work hard without help. Tribal members need that from their tribal leaders get their villages and their people off any government assistance, its only been hurting their communities like an enabling parent being too soft and protective on a perfectly able bodied adult children. Maybe After her departure other leaders will return to AFN to steer AFN and the people in a new direction off of government support to the private sector where the organization work toward changing their peoples paradigm about always wanting government to take care of them thinking that government will always be there. Cause it’s not. Its all gone and this country is living on the grace of God before it implodes.
AFN has a history of cover ups under Julie. The “Me Too” movement virtually missed its members and AFN did nothing about the mostly male board members who were womanizers, i.e. Byron Mallott. AFN is increasingly missing the target as the Alaska Native Regional corporations make their way in the corporate world and the AFN leadership is going tribal.
“..casting a wide net to seek diverse candidates..” Diverse?!? Based upon their actual actions, I don’t think that word means what they think it means…🥴🤦♂️
That’s OK, I am sure that the AFN can find any number of equally radical leftist, pro-globalist, pro-‘woke’ candidates from the Alaskan native Democratic plantation to take Julie’s place. They are a dime a dozen.
Oh! Another one stepping down! Weren’t we told to watch and see all of the people stepping down from their positions? That’s okay. All their actions are on record!
Good riddance.
Julie Kitka has earned and deserves much gratitude for her years of service in leading the Alaska Native community’s statewide organization responsible for advocating for the many changing and impactful issues facing Native and other Alaskans too. AFN’s role is a critical one, and she served it and us well. Thank you, and all the best!
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