Fairbanks borough fills first Citizen Engagement Academy course

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU/KTVF) - All 25 spots in the Fairbanks North Star Borough’s inaugural Citizen Engagement Academy have filled up, with a current 10-person waitlist.

To Mayor Grier Hopkins, the waitlist represents overwhelming interest in the program, which runs out of the mayor’s office and was modeled after a similar effort put on by the City of Fairbanks for the last three years.

“We decided we needed to reach out to the public to allow them space to come into the borough and understand what we do,” Hopkins said.

The free, eight-week course, which starts on September 24 and runs through November 12, is open to borough residents age 16 and older. The course meets once a week on Wednesday evenings.

“We’ve got a fantastic list of students who are going to come join it, from business owners to executives to retired attorneys, from North Pole to Ester and everywhere in between,” Hopkins said, “so we’ve got a really good, diverse, really strong group of borough residents who want to come know what we, what we do every day.”

Participants will learn how the borough collects taxes, funds education, and how community planning and zoning works, among other facets of the borough government, while visiting government facilities like the Juanita Helms Administration Center, the Noel Wien Library, the Parks and Recreation Department and the Transportation Department.

Because the borough has different powers than the City of Fairbanks, the academy will have different focus areas than its city counterpart, while also demonstrating the way the two governments work together, the mayor said.

For instance, Hopkins pointed to the city’s police force and fire department, which the borough does not have, while city residents are not supposed to use the borough’s transfer sites, instead utilizing the city’s solid waste collection.

Hopkins said the academy will lead to more engaged voters and citizens, and he hopes it will lead to more people on the borough’s boards and commissions.

“It’ll really result in community pride, understanding that what we do impacts their lives every day and how we do it and why we do it,” Hopkins said.

The mayor expects that the program will run once a year going forward.

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